Battle of Manazura Island
by Neil Riebe
Summary: Showa Godzilla crosses over into a parallel universe and confronts the Heisei Godzilla. Will Heisei Godzilla be his ally or deadliest enemy?
1. Chapter 1

**Battle of Manazura Island**

By Neil Riebe

Part 1

The afternoon sun set Yokohama ablaze and the air was so abominably muggy even the concrete seemed to sweat. Days like these made one remember winter as an old friend.

Japan's top secret service agent, Shindo Yamaguchi, and Satin, the underworld's most sought after gun-for-hire descended the court house steps. They were too busy generating their won heat to notice summer's pressure-cooker weather.

"Pity about your boss," Shindo linked his fingers with hers. "Thirty years maximum security is a long stretch. I guess you will be free for this evening. Dinner? Nightcap?"

Satin pulled her hand away to scratch the back of her head. "I may have to now that I'm out of a job, thanks to you."

Shindo started down the sidewalk with a chuckle. "You wouldn't have that problem if you didn't work for would be one-world dictators and despots." He sighed with mock resignation. "I suppose you could do worse. You could be working for my boss."

"What a thing to say!"

"About one-world dictators and despots?"

"No! Your boss, Yamashita-san."

"I'm only picking on him."

"Well, I like him."

"You?" Shindo glanced at her, incredulous. "You two are worlds apart."

Satin hooked her arm around his and sidled up to him. "He reminds me of another man I know. Stuffy and by the book."

Shindo gave her a dirty look. To be compared with that stocky, desk-bound troglodyte—he wasn't going to dignify her remark with a retort.

Satin laughed. She teased him with the skill of a surgeon. "You and Goro are more alike than either of you want to admit."

"Sorry I brought him up. Let's talk about us."

"Sure." Satin shrugged amiably.

"Why don't you cancel your trip to Amsterdam? A friend owes me a favor. I can get him to loan us his private jet. We can fly to Singapore. If we hurry we can get their in time to watch the sun set from the deck of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel."

Satin closed her eyes dreamily, took in a deep breath as though savoring the aromas of the fine dining they would enjoy, but declined. "I have business I must attend to otherwise you'll find yourself having to look for another girl."

Shindo was about to offer her his assistance when he noticed light flickering off the high rise windows.

Passers-by looked up. Above the rooftops, a whirlpool of purplish-red light rumbled and churned. Its vortex flashed. People gasped "Ooo!" and "Ah!"

The flashing within the vortex intensified until it exploded with a sonic boom. A winged mass burst from the whirlpool with a gleeful, high-pitched screech. Torrential winds followed in its wake, knocking Yokohamans off their feet. The updrafts overturned cars. People grabbed hold of anything that could anchor them. The winged beast bellowed over the city.

Shindo pulled Satin to the side of the court house. "It's Rodan!"

The wind dissipated as quickly as it struck.

Satin swept her luscious chocolate-brown hair from of her face. "Can't be! Rodan is dead!" G-Force's Mechagodzilla killed Rodan, at least the one she knew. She scrutinized the giant pterosaur as it ascended toward the clouds. "It's too big!"

"And it's coming back!" Shindo pulled Satin down, shielding her against the building.

Rodan shot straight above the clouds and stretched his wings. He let the momentum finish his lazy-loop maneuver, getting a dash of sun across his belly and then nose-dived full bore, enjoying the head-rushing sensation.

Shindo gripped Satin tight. The building vibrated. The disorientated citizens scrambled for cover. Rodan's sonic scream intensified. Light flickered above the streets. The whirlpool reappeared in Rodan's path and engulfed him in a flash of light. In a breath Rodan was gone. A wave of air flowed down into the streets swirling scraps of newspapers in the gutter, giving only a whisper of what was in store for the citizens of Yokohama if Rodan had completed his dive.

All was quiet.

Little by little people stirred from their hiding places. Sirens wailed.

Shindo became more concerned about getting Satin to safety than going on a date. "It's time I get you to the airport."

Shindo watched Satin's plane life off from the terminal window. A gray overcast shrouded the sun, which intensified the longing in his heart.

"I know how you feel," a man said, "losing your girl."

Shindo glanced at the stranger. "Excuse me?"

"I can tell by your expression." The man nodded toward the aircraft. "The woman you love is aboard that plane, isn't she."

"She is. Say, shouldn't I know you?" Shindo recalled a rare photo from a magazine. "Yes! You're Hiro Takashima!" He shook the man's hand. "I love your sci-fi novel about the aliens stealing the hero's girlfriend and turning her into a cyborg. You should writer more thrillers than textbooks on marine life."

Hiro broke a weak grin. "Thanks." He looked uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact. "I should be going."

"Sure."

Hiro Takashima earned the reputation as a recluse, an unhappy man harboring a dark secret. Rumors said it was a broken romance. But who did he love? No one knew.

Shindo turned back to the window. Satin's plane was gone. He sighed. He was about to leave when he noticed the same vortex light he had seen flashing in the sky flashing under the waves at the coastline. A giant monster materialized from the light and burst out of the waves. The creature appeared simian with a mop of black-green hair on its head and sea-green scales covering its body. Its eyes glinted like a demented child and its lips peeled back in a sneer. Shindo had never seen such a monster before, but in another place and another time it was known as Gaila, the Green Gargantua.

The terminal, already hectic and pushy, whipped up into a scene of shrill screams and panic.

Shindo shook the gaping onlookers out of their shock. "Come on! Everyone, evacuate to the back exits! Move!"

Gaila looked about the airport and its flying machines in wonderment. He crossed the runways as easily as a man spans a sidewalk and peered into the terminal windows. The sight of his gnarled features frightened the scurrying humans into a frenzy.

"Emergency!" a woman's voice cried over the PA. "All flights have been suspended. Passengers and personnel are requested to evacuate the airport immediately! Evacuate the airport immediately!"

Luggage slipped from people's hands, becoming tripping hazards. Shindo helped an eldery man to his feet and swooped up a toddler from being trampled. He shoved the tot into his mother's arms. "Carry him!"

Bodies clogged an exit. Shindo pulled people out of the human logjam until the flow loosened. He squeezed through and rushed up the hall to the back offices. From behind a closed door he heard bricks being smashed and glass shattering. A scream followed.

Shindo kicked open the door. A secretary was cowering behind a desk. The gargantuan thrust its hand through the hole it had bashed into the wall, reaching for the woman. Shindo dove across the room, pulling her out of the gargantua's reach.

The monster's hand smashed through the floor. Chairs, cabinets, and desks tumbled through the hole and crashed onto the floor below.

Gaila tried to grab them again. Shindo kicked back, rolling himself and the woman out into the hall. The monster's hand whipped past them, its nails raked the walls.

The floor sagged under Shindo and the secretary. They slid over the edge alongside someone's abandoned suitcase. Shindo grabbed an exposed beam with one arm. His other pulled tight grasping the woman. The lost luggage cracked open on the floor below, spilling its contents. Shindo imagined something similar would've happened to their guts if he hadn't grabbed the beam.

Gaila glared at them through the hole in the building. With his prey dangling from the beam, it could no longer escape him.

"Grab my waist!"

The woman clung to Shindo's waist and buried her face into his back while he reached for his service pistol.

Then the cloud cover broke. Gaila reeled, shielding his eyes from the sun's radiance. Enraged, he screamed and charged back to the sea. The ground shuttered under his footfalls. Halfway to the coast the vortex light swirled around him and he vanished in a flash.

Shindo pulled himself to firmer ground. He helped the secretary to her feet. She thanked him over and over for her life. Then he noticed her beige blouse and skirt. She did not look old enough to have sixties fashions in her closet. He wondered...

"Madam, I know this sounds out of place, but may I ask how long you have been working here? It's important."

She looked at him strangely then at her surroundings. Her expression looked lost. Before she could utter a gasp, she disappeared.

Shindo returned at National Security Headquarters, Tokyo.

"You're late," Yamashita barked.

"Sorry, I was tied up at the airport," Shindo said. He took note of the girl seated in the office.

Yamashita nodded to the mayhem on his wall screen. "What do you make of that?"

"Hm..." Shindo intoned, appraising the girl. He hadn't taken his eye off her yet. "She's about twenty-one... smartly dressed. Very pretty eyes."

The girl pressed her fingers to her smile to keep from laughing.

"Oh, I apologize," Yamashita muttered gruffly. He cleared his throat. "Miki Saegusa, this is Shindo Yamaguchi, one of my top agents."

Miki bowed her head in greeting and extended her hand. Shindo took her soft palm and nodded back.

"Ms. Saegusa is a leading member of the United Nations Godzilla Counter-Measure Team," Yamashita added. "The UN sent her over here to help with this monster business. So far she hasn't been able to identify a one, such as this example seen at Osaka docks earlier today."

"Oh, yes." Shindo turned to the wall screen. Another creature he had never seen before climbed out of Osaka Bay. It resembled an ankylosaurus with a horn on its snout and frill of horns fanning out from the back of its head. Its entire back was covered with spikes. "Thorny devil," Shindo commented. A fifties-vintage MLRS launched a stream of rockets. The warheads flowered into fiery blossoms. Black smoke billowed. The monster pushed through the attack uttering a fearsome yet hauntingly mournful sounding wail. Of course, no one in the room had any idea this creature went by the name Anguirus.

"That launcher is an old piece of hardware," Shindo tapped the image of the rocket launcher on the wall screen. "I just had a similar encounter at the airport. An ape-like creature materialized, terrorized the place for a spell then vanished. I also met a woman dressed in 60s style clothes. She disappeared, too, shortly after the monster."

"Did she, now?" Shindo's chief said with interest. "Half of the sightings report a corresponding person or vehicle dating back thirty to forty years ago. It's like someone is plucking moments from the past and chucking them out into the streets. But it's not our past. It's someone else's, from a world which has many more monsters than ours." Yamashita switched off the screen with the remote. "Yomo got us a lead down at Mushita Electronics. They're conducting experiments on temporal physics. I want you and Miki to go down there and see if they have any explanation for what's going on."

Shindo and Miki drove to Mushita Electronics. After they presented their IDs, the receptionist gave them clearance to enter the research and development department on the fifth floor. They met Yomo, Shindo's partner and long time friend, in the corridor, right outside the elevator.

"Yomo!" Shindo vigorously shook his friend's hand. "How's it going?"

"Fine." Yomo nodded to Miki, "I see your dates are getting younger!"

"No." Shindo held up his hand to assure him. "Strictly business. This is Miki Saegusa."

As Yomo took Miki's hand Shindo noticed a woman in a lab coat giving instructions to a man making notations on a clipboard. Just the sight of her was enough to make him want to sigh in a low whistle. "Who's she?"

Yomo glanced. "Oh, you've yet to meet my wife, Sayoko."

Shindo grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear. "You devil!"

Yomo smiled sheepishly. He took Shindo and Miki down the hall to introduce them to his wife. "Sayoko, I want you to meet my friend, Shindo Yamaguchi. And this is his partner, Miki Saegusa."

Sayoko shook Shindo's hand then Miki's. "Yes, I've heard of you, Ms. Saegusa. You're the girl from the Mind Development Institute."

"That's right." Miki rubbed her hand from the woman's surprisingly strong grip.

"Mr. Yamaguchi," Sayoko said, "I'm to be your tour guide. Shall we get started?"

"Certainly."

Sayoko took them to a vault-like door. She slipped a card through the entry keypad's slot and punched in a series of numbers. The locks released with a hiss and the door hummed open. She led them to an expansive octagon-shaped room. To the left was a lift; center, a burnished cylinder with a glass top. Under the glass cover was a black device. It was about the size of a man's fist and dimpled with what looked like camera lenses.

"This is our latest experiment." Sayoko motioned everyone to gather around the cylindrical column in the center of the room. "Kenzo Mushita, our company's founder and president, has a keen interest in cosmological questions—faster than light travel, time travel, multiple universes and so forth. The black object under the glass cover is a sensor. Its function is to observe fluctuations in the temporal plane. Mushita is working under the theory that Time is a form of energy like light. With this," she indicated the sensor, "we hope to feel around for anomalies, anything that will help us isolate Time from the rest of the forces of the universe.

"Recently we've detected spikes in temporal emissions. We're not too sure what's causing them, but their occurrences coincide with the monster appearances across the country. I can show you the readings." Sayoko motioned toward the door.

"Do you think it might be the Futurians again?" Miki asked on their way out. "Good question," Sayoko answered. "Suffice it to say if they try to interfere with our history again, we'll…"

Three men in lab coats and a covered cart interrupted her in the corridor. They presented an instruction sheet and ID clearance. She read their orders, glanced at their IDs and permitted them access to the octagon room.

Shindo noted their tight expressions. They behaved as though they didn't want to be here, or rather, they didn't want to be seen. Miki tugged his arm. She looked worried, and being a telepath, she probably sensed something wrong about those three men. Shindo followed them.

Sayoko asked Yomo. "Where is Shindo going?"

Shindo quietly approached the three men. They had parked their cart beside the temporal sensor and were hunched at the base of the column working on something Shindo couldn't see. "Taken an interest in Sayoko's science project, have we?" he said.

They spun around. Shindo belted the nearest man across his goatee-chin. The second man lunged at him. Shindo used his judo on the man's throat and threw him aside. Now he had a clear view of what they were working on: a bomb!

The goatee-man wrapped his arms around Shindo, pinning his arms to his side and putting pressure on his chest.

The second flicked out a dagger and made a thrust for Shindo's stomach. A swift kick sent the knife spinning across the floor and rebounding off the wall. A second kick sent him falling onto the cart with an "Oof!" and an "Auk-hh!" when he rolled off the cart and crashed onto the floor with their equipment.

Goatee growled into Shindo's ear, squeezing tighter, constricting Shindo's breath in his chest. Shindo hammered his head back. Then again. Again. And connecting once more.

The man released him, staggering back, holding his nose. Shindo grabbed the back of his neck, bent him over, and kneed him in the ribs. A gun tumbled out from behind the man's lab coat.

The second pulled an Uzi from the cart. Shindo dropped to the floor, scooping up the pistol, and fired a clean shot to the man's chest. The bullet's impact knocked him off his feet. He lay sprawled on the floor dead.

The third man finished setting the detonator to the bomb and bolted for the lift. The timer clicked away at 3... 2...

Shindo scrambled for the bomb. He slid it across the floor, through the closing gap into the elevator just as the door dinged shut.

The explosion shook the floor with a jolt and clanged the metal door like a heavy church bell. Thick smoke poured through the broken seams. Shindo could barely hear over the ringing in his ears the debris crumbling down the shaft.

The goatee thug darted behind him for the door pushing through his friends. Senses still a bit in a daze, Shindo pursued. "Come on, Yomo!"

Sayoko waved away the smoke checking the damage.

Miki kneeled down by the corpse. The smoke thinned enough for her to watch the face seem to melt and reform into something black and wild with hair. The features were simian. Nothing at all like a man. "I knew it," she muttered under breath. "Aliens."

Shindo and Yomo skidded to a halt in the corridor as the goateed thug ducked into the elevator. The door pinged shut.

"Yomo, the stairs!"

They circled down the stairwell to the reception area. "The elevator is just opening!" Yomo puffed.

Shindo swung over the railing, his shoes clicking the floor. Goatee bolted across the reception area and pushed through the glass doors. Shindo bounded after him. Outside, the back doors to a parked van opened. Shindo was about to burst through the doors when he saw the van's rear suspension lurch under a heavy weight. A hooded figure, robed in black, stepped onto the sidewalk leveling both arms as though they were guns. Shindo spun around and caught Yomo just before they both went rushing outside. He pulled his partner to the floor. Machine gun fire spewed over them. Glass disintegrated and sprayed. People screamed. The stream of bullets ripped splinters out of the front desk and punched pockmarks into the walls.

The firing stopped and the van pulled away over the din's echo.

Panting gasped throughout the room. Shindo pulled his head up. Glass fragments slid off his shoulders and out of his hair. People were milling outside in shock and horror. "Anyone hurt?" Shindo asked. Thankfully everyone was just shocked. The receptionist poked her head up. "Yomo, how about you?"

Yomo looked about. "Yes, thanks."

The two Japanese secret service agents got up and brushed themselves off. Shindo pointed to the receptionist. "Call the police. Tell them everything you saw." He patted Yomo on the shoulder. "You better see how your wife is doing."

"Right." Yomo went to the lift. "Shindo, I just hope Miki is not right about the Futurians. Shindo?" He turned around. Shindo had already token off in pursuit of the van.

#

The late night hours ticked by painfully slow. Yamashita supported his head with his elbow at his desk. Even though he didn't say anything, everyone could tell by the look on his face he was inwardly grumbling about Shindo not reporting in.

Miki sat at the end of her chair with her hands folded on her lap, trying to appear relaxed, but was terribly tense on what happened to her dashing partner.

Yomo paced the room.

Sayoko was nearly asleep in the other chair. She seemed to be the only one confident in Shindo's ability to take care of himself. She raised a tired brow toward her pacing husband. "Oh, take a rest, honey."

The phone cut the silence. Yamashita pounced on it. "Yes? Shindo!" All eyes were on him. "Where are you…? Manazura Island? Shindo, listen, do not under any circumstances pursue these people on your own...Shindo? Shindo!" Yamashita slammed the receiver. "Gone!"

"Well, Chief," Yomo asked, "what's up?"

"Shindo tailed the opposition to Manazura Island. There's an old abandoned estate in the woods. That would be the best place to HQ, so he says. Yomo, check it out."

Miki stood up to join him. Yomo looked at her in surprise.

"I am his partner," she reminded him.

"Right," Yomo nodded. "Let's go."

They headed for the door. Then Yomo noticed his wife following them. "Sayoko, dear?"

"I might as well come along. You're not going to be home anymore tonight."

#

After reporting in to his chief, Shindo explored the grounds. He realized he shouldn't investigate without backup, but he didn't want to wait, especially when the trail was warm.

Out of personal amusement, Shindo tried the front door. To his surprise, it opened. He scanned the interior with his flashlight. The beam shimmered in a small empty foyer. He stepped inside, into a short hall. He swung his light up the stairs and around the area. This place was a corpse, as buildings go. Abandoned, cool, and smelling of mold. He knelt down and shinned the flashlight beam close to the floor.

"Yes," Shindo whispered. "They're here."

Shindo tracked the telltale signs of footprints in the dust to a metal door. He switched off his light and felt for his service pistol. He waited for noise.

Nothing.

Shindo opened the door. It whispered in a metallic squeak. He paused again for a reaction.

Still nothing.

He switched on his light, finding a staircase enshrouded in cobwebs. On his left was a junction box. He scanned it for use.

None. The box was crusted over by a blanket of dust. Spiders ducked and insects wriggled away from the light.

The steps descended to a mirror.

Why would a staircase lead to a mirror?

Shindo went down to check it out. When he approached the mirror, it slid aside, revealing a second set of steps descending around a corner to an area pulsating with purple light. Shindo switched off his flashlight and went down to see what was generating the light.

His eyes widened at what he found. Before him was a basement stocked with control banks, monitors, instruments. All were functioning. At the far end stood the cloaked figure. It was operating one of the control panels. Shindo aimed his weapon. "Who are you?"

"Why don't you step a little closer and find out?" a resonant voice said.

He looked around for the voice's source and found none. He paused at the steps.

"Forward! Sate your curiosity. If I was going to harm you I would've done so before you even set foot into this house."

Shindo kept his gun ready, anyway, and approached the figure. It continued pressing keys. Shindo reached for the hood. It was not distracted. He yanked it off. Shindo jumped back. A metallic, skeletal head turned with a whir. The lenses in its eyes focused on him.

The voice boomed into laughter. "That's not me!"

Shindo was getting put off.

"Aw, don't be upset. Stand still and you'll see me."

Shindo clicked back the hammer on his gun.

The silvery vortex light swirled around him. His flesh prickled with pins-and-needles. In a flash everything turned black, and then the blackness took on substance in the form of a towering silo. A bric-a-brac collection of scaffolding and machinery lined the walls. Shindo ran his eyes across the conduits hanging from the machines to a gigantic, metal monster. Its silvery features were familiar yet different. He was not sure but his lips ventured, "Mechagodzilla?"

The machine monster chuckled. "I am. Welcome, Shindo Yamaguchi!"

"Have we met before?"

"In a manner of speaking." Mechagodzilla looked down at Shindo's reaction with amusement. "Confused? Then I'll explain. You are in a parallel universe. Your world and mine have a lot in common. For instance, yours has, or rather had a mechagodzilla while this world has me." He clanged his hand against his chest. The massive power cables plugged into his arms swished and banged together. "Incidentally, I consider myself the genuine article."

Shindo couldn't help grinning at the machine creature's pride in itself. "Another thing we have in common is Godzilla. Regrettably for you yours is destructive. But I have good news. I shall replace him and in his guise be the hero of your world."

"I don't understand. Why would you want to be our hero?"

"Because in my world Godzilla is a hero. Humans love him for the protection he gives them and allow him to live autonomously. I wish the same for myself for the sake of my survival."

Shindo scratched the back of his neck and looked around. "I can't believe this is real. First of all 'our' Godzilla is twice as big as you. People will know you are not him."

"True. But since matter needs to be atomically broken down anyway all we have to do is reconstruct an object to a larger size when we re-materialize it in your world."

"I have a feeling I am already too late to stop what you're doing."

"You are."

"And that means I am about to die."

"What for?" Mechagodzilla boomed jovially. "Like you said, you're too late to stop me. You shall be my prisoner." A door hummed open.

"Am I expected to just walk into my cell?"

"Walk anywhere you like. Your friends can't help you. You are in another place, in another dimension. Enjoy your stay!"

For the moment Shindo resigned to play along and entered the cubicle.

The door slid shut and after another electro-static shock the door reopened to the control room. The walls and floor were clean. The robed figure was not there. No one was. He ascended the steps. The mirror-door slid out of his way. He continued up the last of the steps. The cobwebs were gone and the junction box now had a glowing red light.

Shindo started to believe he indeed had been transported to a parallel world. The house was exactly the same as before, but fully furnished. The mold was out of the air. Now he smelled a hint of linseed oil from the hardwood floor and the aroma of a recently cooked meal from the kitchen. There was no way someone could breathe life into this place within the short while he spoke to the machine creature.

The only thing he found sinister was the lack of light.

A shadow passed down the side of the wall around the corner.

Shindo raised his pistol at the ready and followed, back pressed against the wall, stopping at a half-open bedroom door. Even though the room was silent instinct said someone was there. Shindo kicked the door open, gun leveled.

A woman in a loose silken blouse and long red patterned dress stood before a free standing lamp. Her hair flowed and curled along the soft oval line of her expressionless face and came to a light rest over her trim shoulders. Shindo awkwardly tucked his weapon away feeling caught with his zipper open. Her eyes watched the gun be put away then fixed back on him.

"Sorry if I may have upset you." Shindo found it hard to stay focused. She was stunningly beautiful. Yet, the young woman seemed like an apparition the way she stood so silent, vacant of feeling, but cunningly attentive. He nodded a smart bow. "I am Shindo Yamaguchi. May I ask who you are?"

She spoke softly and matter-of-factly. "Strangers are not welcomed here." Then she blasted him with a flash of light from her eyes.

#

"Who used to own this old house?" Sayoko asked as she flashed her light from the three-story tower on her right to the archway-covered front door on her left.

"Shinzo Mafune." Yomo scanned his flashlight in the opposite direction. "A marine biologist. Yamashita told us about him. During his field agent days he was assigned to watch Mafune's activities. Mafune was experimenting in cerebral control of sea life. The word was out the Soviets were taking an interest in utilizing his ideas on humans. Nothing came of it. Mafune died. No children, no surviving relatives."

Miki searched with her telepathy. "I don't sense Shindo's presence. Or anybody's for that matter."

"His car is down the road. Either way we better check it out." Yomo led the way to the front door. Twilight brightened to dawn. They doused their flashlights. Inside they searched for clues.

#

Goras ordered his seven Spacemen to stand at attention. His lieutenant Mogga, who had a short while ago returned from his raid on Mushita Electronics in the parallel Earth, stood by Goras's side. "Our temporal teleporter," Gorasa said, "can summon nothing larger than animals like Rodan, Gaila, and Anguirus. If we had access to better technology we would be able to construct a teleporter powerful enough to rescue our planet from being sucked into the black hole."

"But we are not beaten! We will refocus our efforts on teleporting to the parallel Earth which we have been using as a testing site for our temporal experiments. There we will seek out a duplicate of our home world, make contact with our parallel brothers, and build a temporal teleporter powerful enough to rescue our home. Trust me, we are far from finished!"

The young woman strode into the control room. "Shindo is taken care of."

"Excellent, Katsura." Goras smiled.

"Look!" Mogga pointed to one of the monitors suspended from the ceiling. "His allies have entered the Mafune house in the parallel Earth! We can't risk them accessing the basement!"

"Just let Mechagodzilla lure them down here, too," Katsura suggested.

"Not necessary." Goras stepped to the controls and activated the drone.

#

Yomo signaled everyone to stop. "Did any of you hear that?"

Sayoko shrugged. "No."

Miki did, and she heard it again. "Footsteps," she said, "coming from downstairs."

Yomo frowned. "You're right. It's coming from downstairs. Everyone split up!" As soon as the women were out of sight, he quietly made his way toward the footsteps then stopped. Hinges squeaked. Footfalls thudded on the hardwood floor. Yomo slipped out his service pistol and peeked around the corner.

Nothing. Just an open metal door. But something had come up out of the basement, he was certain of it.

In another room, Miki scrunched into a corner with her eyes on the door. A glump... glump... glump.. pumf... pumf... closed in as the footsteps went from wood to the old carpet out in the hall. She drew in her breath and listened over the beating of her heart. A creak of wood echoed far away. Pumf... pumf... glump. The stepping faded into other parts of the house

Sayoko was halfway up to the second floor when she heard the footsteps draw closer.

Glump... glump... GLUMP!

The black-robed figure arrived at the bottom of the steps. Sayoko locked eyes with the robot's targeting lenses from under the black hood. It raised its steel fists. The sleeves slid back from the barrels mounted in its forearms.

Sayoko pinched her eyes tight, expecting to be shot to pieces. Instead she heard a shoe ding off its head. The robed drone spun around blazing both machine guns. Miki dived into an open room. Hot metal slugs pierced the wall. She wrapped her arms over her head. Her skin stung and prickled from the spray of wood splinters and plaster.

Sayoko dashed up the steps. The drone spun back toward her and opened fire. The railing and wall disintegrated all around her as she bolted out of line of sight.

Yomo descended into the basement and found the bright, blinking control room. He spun back toward the steps upon hearing the machine guns' wicked chatter.

The firing stopped. Sayoko dropped to the floor exasperated. The heavy steps moved away. Miki peered through the bullet holes in the wall, seeing no sign of the killing machine. She made her way to the hall. Sayoko came back down from upstairs, holding her panting chest. Miki grabbed her shoe and chased after the drone.

Yomo ran up from the basement then stopped short. His mouth dropped in horror. He aimed his pistol.

Miki heard the crack of a pistol, then the staccato blazing of machine gun fire. A body thumped down the stairs in between bursts. Miki spotted the robe figure descend to the basement.

Miki slipped into her stocking feet to reduce the sound of her approach and ran up to the doorway. It did not hear her. With no weapons but her own body she grabbed the railings and kicked both feet into its back with all her weight.

The drone toppled down the concrete steps, clattering like scrap. Miki leapt from the steps just as it regained its footing and tried to knock it down with a flying tackle. She succeeded in knocking it over but she failed to secure her grip and hit the cement. The impact snapped crippling pain through her arms and body.

Miki yelped and crumpled up on the floor.

"Miki!" Sayoko ran down the stairs to check on the young psychic. She spotted the drone lying in the control room. Each finger flexed then a lens focused. The other lens sparked. The drone was performing a systems check. Now was the time to destroy it!

Sayoko looked for something, anything! She grabbed a power conduit running from a suspended monitor. A massive shadow rose over her. She yanked the line. The drone grabbed her around the neck and squeezed. Her vision turned red. Sayoko yanked harder, her grip slipping from sweat. She became lightheaded. The servos in the knuckles whined as the steel talons tightened.

Finally the conduit broke loose in a shower of sparks. Sayoko stabbed the hot wires into its shattered lens.

Sayoko dropped to the floor under a shower of electric sizzle. Air gasped into her inflamed lungs. She kept her hand over her neck frightened of the worse. Nothing was wrong.

"Sayoko-ahh!" Miki tried to right herself. "Sayoko, Yomo is down here somewhere. I heard him fall from the gunfire."

"Yomo!" Yomoko looked to and fro. "Yomo! YOMO?"

"What?" Yomo popped up from behind a control bank.

Sayoko turned around. Her husband was completely unscathed.

"Were you hiding here all this time?"

"No," he rubbed his sore cranium. "Just came to actually. What happened?"

Sayoko slapped Yomo upside the head. "Ow! That's where I hit the steps!"

Miki gingerly checked her sore body for fractures.

#

Goras banged the control panel with his fist. "They destroyed the drone."

"We must act before those humans fetch soldiers." Mogga shook his finger at Shindo's friends who were up on the monitor.

Goras concurred. "We will execute our contingency plan now. To your stations. Katsura, tell Mechagodzilla to stand by for teleportation."

The Spacemen took their posts in the control room.

#

Miki unsteadily got back on her feet. Luckily she was only badly bruised. Her brow furrowed. "Biollante."

"What?" Her companions were bewildered.

"I can hear Biollante calling right from this room." Then she sensed a familiar presence. She headed upstairs and out of the house. Birds took to the air in fright. They too could sense what was coming.

Miki ran to the tower, forced the door open, and ascended the spiral staircase to the top. From this vantage point she could see over the forest, down the hill, and into the bay. A black mass stirred the waters. Miki caught her breath. Even though she had encountered Godzilla many times she became chilled, like the chill one gets when a powerful storm rolls over the horizon.

Godzilla swam until the water became too shallow and stood up in the middle of the bay. The fishermen along the coast gaped in horror. Godzilla scattered them with a bellow. His sloshing toward the shore stirred up turbulent waves which pitched and tossed the fishing boats. A cool breeze sent a tingling sensation through his wet hide. A throaty purr of satisfaction rumbled in his throat. To him, he sounded satisfied, but to the humans he sounded all the more menacing. He turned his gaze up the slope, toward the abandoned estate.

Miki caught her breath. He seemed to be glaring at her. In truth, he was on the look out for Biollante.

She became frightened. The transmission of Biollante's cry sounded like a lure, and if she was right, someone was about to spring a trap on a 100-meter-tall mountain of muscle and thick scales. What frightened her was that she was standing on the site where the trap was to be sprung. She couldn't say who would be in more danger, Godzilla or she and her companions.

#

"Teleportation field open." Katsura enabled the stabilizing control.

Goras and his cohorts punched a hole between the parallel universes. The vortex light swirled outside the Mafune house. Anyone stepped into the light would instantly find themselves on the grounds of the Mafune house on the parallel Earth.

Mechagodzilla watched their progress from an overhead monitor. "Unleash Hammer and Anvil now!"

"Patience," Goras said to the towering cyborg. "Let the parallel Godzilla get a little closer…now!" He signaled Mogga.

The basement suddenly shook. Alarms sounded.

"Resuscitation circuits damaged!" Mogga cried out in panic. "We can't bring Hammer and Anvil out of suspended animation."

One of the other Spacemen drew Goras's attention to a bank of monitors observing the grounds outside. "Commander, look! He's here!"

"Not him!" Goras growled. "Not now!"

The control room shook again. Dust trickled from the ceiling. Sparks spat from the control panels.

"He's now heading for the vortex," Goras said with his eye still on the outside cameras. "Close the teleportation field!"

"Closing transference field." Katsura quickly re-flipped switches.

Mogga shouted, "We're too late! He's going through!"

#

Godzilla scaled the slope, wading through the trees. He could see a human dwelling, but no sign of Biollante. He sensed something odd about this cry. He didn't hear it with his ears. Somehow he sensed it in his head. He had no idea if the plant monster had evolved a new attack technique or what, but Biollante was too dangerous a foe to be ignored.

Yomo, Sayoko, and Miki ran to his car. Tree trunks snapped and popped in the forest. The ground shook under their feet from Godzilla's footfalls. By the time they reached the vehicle they were too late. Godzilla loomed overhead.

He roared in challenge. When no one responded, Godzilla drew in his breath. His triple row of fins crackled with energy. From the way he spread his gaze across the Mafune estate he seemed intent on setting the entire grounds ablaze.

Then a blue flame slammed Godzilla in the chest like a fist. It spewed at him continuously and then let up. Godzilla tottered on his heels. Smoke rolled off his chest. His eyes glazed over. He dropped flat on his back. The concussion knocked the three humans off their feet. Godzilla slid down the slope, grinding timber to pulp.

"That beam came from that swirling light." Yomo pointed to the vortex.

The vortex flashed viciously. A second titan forced his way out of it. He grimaced with a look of bold determination. He banged his knuckles together and roared.

Miki probed its mind. "Godzilla?" She probed deeper. "It is! It's Godzilla!"

"But..." Yomo pointed toward the Godzilla they knew who had slid down the hill. The angry beast rose up. Broken trees slipped from his fins.

"They both are," Miki said. "Except this new one is on our side!"

The friendly Godzilla acknowledged the psychic with a nod. He thumped forward putting himself squarely between the three lives and his doppelganger at the bottom of the hill.

The Godzilla of this world ground his four-toed feet into the dirt, bracing himself for a second blast. He was determined not to be knocked off balance again.

"Godzilla versus Godzilla," Sayoko mused. "Who would ever thought it could happen?"

The Godzilla at the bottom of the hill thumped his tail, infuriated. This was his territory! His triple row of fins flared as he fired up the slope and struck his opponent's shoulder, spinning him off his feet.

Godzilla summoned more of his strength and traced a second beam from tail to head. Trees wilted into flames. Godzilla marched up the slope launching a third blistering barrage.

The friendly Godzilla squealed in agony. This must had been how Kong felt, he thought, recalling his fight with the giant ape. Therefore, the friendly Godzilla opted to use a Kong maneuver. He uprooted several trees and sprung to his feet between barrages. He grabbed the other Godzilla by the throat and stopped up his mouth with the roots.

The bestial Godzilla's eyes bugged. His arms swung wildly as he choked on dirt and tree trunks. Instinct kicked in and he bit down on the trees. Chunks of wood shot out from between his teeth. He spat out the chomped trees and bit the heroic Godzilla in the arm out of revenge.

They tugged back and forth with arm in jaws, snarling and growling. Dust kicked up around them, obscuring them in a brown cloud. To free his arm, the heroic Godzilla knee the other Godzilla in the stomach. A gasp burst from his adversary's throat. The arm was free.

The heroic Godzilla stepped back grasping his wounded arm. He whipped his tail for his opponent's ankles, but the bestial Godzilla proved to be surprisingly swift. He grabbed the heroic Godzilla's tail in mid swing.

The bestial Godzilla drew in a snarl and yanked the tail up like a carpet from under one's feet. His parallel-world opponent smacked head first into the hard dirt, teeth snapping together. Godzilla swung him up into the air and let him drop. The driveway jolted, spilling the three humans onto the ground again. Godzilla picked him up by the tail again and slammed him down hard and then blasted him with his atomic heat ray.

The heroic Godzilla wailed in agony. He should've known better, after all he was facing himself! He kicked the bestial Godzilla in the baggy knee cap, then wrapped his tail around the bruised joint and squeezed. The bestial Godzilla bellowed. He tried to pull free only to topple onto the ground. His bulkier body threw up a larger dust cloud when he struck the ground. Bits of dirt rained down all over the forest and pattered on the driveway.

With his opponent down, the heroic Godzilla got back up and grunted for his namesake to rise.

The bestial Godzilla fired at him from the ground.

The heroic Godzilla counter-fired. Their beams struck and exploded into a bright blue nova! The heroic Godzilla grunted at the bestial one to rise.

The bestial Godzilla was stubborn. He fired again only to have his beam countered. All this aggression was getting him no where. He complied, standing up, but he kept up his guard.

The two Godzillas sized each other up. Miki read their minds and founf they were going to cease fighting for the moment. She returned to the tower to get a clear view of what was going to happen next.

The heroic Godzilla did not come into this world to make enemies. He grunted, making a swiping motion with his hand.

The second cocked his head, trying to understand what that gesture meant.

The heroic Godzilla stepped back and relaxed his poise.

Yomo and his wife joined Miki in the tower. "Miki, what is going on out there?"

"This new Godzilla is trying to make peace with our Godzilla." She telepathically listened to their thoughts. "I think he is making progress... He is! Look!"

Now that calmed down, Godzilla sensed something familiar about this new creature. Obviously they were of the same species, but it was more personal than that. He had seen his reflection on the waters many times and this creature did not look like those reflections. Yet this animal seemed to be...seemed to be…Godzilla reeled his head back in shock. This creature that stepped out of the swirling light seemed to be him!

Being a stranger in a strange land, the heroic Godzilla needed an ally. He did not have the time to teach this Godzilla the communication skills he and all the other monsters on Monster Island learned. Someone would have to mediate. He turned for the tower.

"He's coming right for us!" Sayoko yelled. "Let's get out of here!"

Miki grabbed her arm. "It's all right."

The heroic Godzilla bent down to see in the tower. Now that he was twice as big, individual humans were twice as hard to spot. He called to the psychic inside.

Miki slid aside the window and leaned over the sill. He wanted her to read his mind. She did so eagerly, curious of what she would find. He was surprisingly intelligent. In fact, he seemed to be as intelligent as a human being.

Yomo and Sayoko watched Miki close her eyes in concentration. They felt nervous being stared at by this new monster. No matter what the psychic said, they didn't trust this "friendly" Godzilla. He was bigger than them and had sharp teeth.

Miki nodded and said, "I understand."

"What's going on?" Sayoko demanded.

The psychic girl opened her eyes with a bright smile. "This is so incredible. This friendly Godzilla wants me to use my ESP to help him to talk to our Godzilla!"

#

Leaves and broken branches littered the driveway. Katsura strode across the pavement to the yard where the heroic Godzilla—the Godzilla of her world—had stomped his foot. She stepped down into his footprint. There was a hole in the ground where the heel landed.

Mogga helped Goras climb out of the hole.

"Quite a bit of the chamber collapsed onto the resuscitation unit and the generator. It's like Godzilla knew right where to hit. At least our two specimens are safe." Goras brushed himself off. "What's your report, Katsura?"

"The Godzillas have stopped fighting and Sayoko has started disassembling the control banks in the control room in the parallel Earth."

"She won't learn much." Goras led the way back to the house. "We need to get things operating here. Katsura, get me a full damage assessment. Mogga, fetch spare parts. Act fast. Mechagodzilla can't replace the parallel-Earth Godzilla now that Superzilla is over there. Knowing our Godzilla, he will try to make a hero out of the other one. Then we will have two Godzillas opposing us! Both Godzillas must be destroyed."

To be continued...

The next chapter features a lot of Toho characters. In case their names are unfamiliar, their film appearances are listed below. Some of them you already met in this chapter!

**Showa Series**

Professor Miyajima—_Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla_ (1974)

Akira Ichinose—_Terror of Mechagodzilla_ (1975)

Jiro Murakoshi—_Terror of Mechagodzilla_ (1975)

Katsura Mafune—_Terror of Mechagodzilla_ (1975)

Dr. Shinzo Mafune—_Terror of Mechagodzilla_ (1975)

Commander Mugal—_Terror of Mechagodzilla_ (1975)

The Spacemen—_Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla_ (1974) & _Terror of Mechagodzilla_ (1975)

**Heisei Series**

Miki Saegusa—_Godzilla vs. Biollante_ through _Destroyah_ (1989-1995)

General Aso—_Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (2)_ through _Destroyah_ (1993-1995)


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

Shindo rolled on the cold, cement floor. The first sound he heard when he regained consciousness was his own groaning. The flash of light had left him feeling like he had been zapped by a taser. His retinas still stung.

A man watched him. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded. The light shining through the small window behind him silhouetted his lean frame.

Shindo blinked in disbelief. The man's face was as familiar as an image in the mirror. He pointed at the man and then at himself. His lips stammered. He tried to form words but couldn't.

"Interesting," his cellmate said. "I had the same reaction when the Spacemen threw you in here. I imagine your name is the same as mine, Shindo Yamaguchi. Like me, you're a secret service agent. Your boss is Goro Yamashita. Your partner is Yomo…"

"Kuta," Shindo finished. This stranger was just like him, in fact it was him, a Shindo of a parallel Earth. He got up, dusted off his clothes, and shook the other Shindo's hand. "It's about time I met a man of my own caliber!"

"Likewise," The parallel-world Shindo smiled. "We need to get to work. The Spacemen will interrogate you soon. I know the layout of this place better than you. If we switch clothes, they will take me."

"And you can escape and get help while I keep them preoccupied here."

"Exactly!"

They started swapping clothes.

"Fill me in on the score," Shindo asked his double. "Who are these Spacemen?"

"They're apes from the Third Planet from the Black Hole."

"That's a mouthful!"

"That's the official name as provided by Interpol. These creatures disguise themselves to look human, but after they're injured their bodies morph back into their true form."

"What do the Spacemen want?"

"Originally they wanted to conquer Earth so their people could colonize our planet before theirs was sucked into a black hole. Well, now their home world has been destroyed by the black hole and they're trying everything in their power to retrieve it. The fact you're here tells me their experiments have enjoyed some success. Did you learn anything of what those experiments are? I've been stuck in this cell."

Shindo shook his head. "They tried to destroy a temporal sensor in my world. I don't see why they care if we detect what they're doing in your universe, unless mine has something they want."

"You know they do," the other Shindo answered. "Think about it. Both of our worlds have Godzilla, you and me, our friends. It follows the Spacemen exist in both worlds. They might be looking for help from their brothers in your universe."

"Enough about the Spacemen." Shindo exchanged shoes with his new parallel-world partner. "Let's talk about the girl. Who is she?"

"Her name is Katsura Mafune."

"Mafune? Daughter of Shinzo Mafune?"

The other Shindo nodded.

"The Mafune of my world had no children. But then this Katsura hit me with some sort of ray from her eyes. What is she really?"

"She's human." Shindo's double started unbuttoning his shirt. "At least I would like to think so. She had been electrocuted while helping her father with an experiment. The Spacemen turned her into a cyborg. They claimed it was necessary to save her life."

"You sound skeptical."

"The Spacemen aren't altruists. They implanted Mechagodzilla's control, primary CPU, whatever you want to call it, into her body. They wanted Mechagodzilla to interface with her brain to improve his processing speed."

"This must have happened when they were trying to conquer Earth."

"That's right. A marine biologist named Ichinose fell in love with her. He tried to rescue Katsura from the Spacemen but ended up as a prisoner. It was down in the control room he learned the awful truth of what they did to her."

They exchanged shirts.

"So what happened?"

"Murakoshi, Ichinose's friend, led an Interpol raid on the house. He found the two of them downstairs with her father...

**Ichinose released the rope from around the dead Spaceman's throat—the very same rope the Spacemen had used to bind him. Finally, there was no one left to keep Katsura from him! He got up, ready to say "let's get out of here!" Instead his breath caught in his throat. He froze right where he stood. Katsura stood protectively before Dr. Mafune with a weapon aimed at him!**

**"You can't do it!" Ichinose said. "You wouldn't shoot me!"**

**Katsura shook her head. "You're wrong. I'm not alive. I may look like a girl but I'm not. I'm a cyborg!" She tightened her grip on the trigger.**

**Murakoshi—timely as always—burst on the scene and fired first. Katsura gripped her arm and fell. Mafune stepped toward his daughter, gasping her name. "Freeze!" Murakoshi shouted at the turncoat scientist. "Ichinose, are you all right?"**

**Ichinose knelt beside Katsura and took her into his arms.**

**The alien commander, Mugal, arrived at the top of the steps and called Mafune. Dr. Mafune ran up to him and when he came within reach, Mugal grabbed him and used him as a shield. Shots fired off. Mafune took a hit. He kicked against Death in the midst of the crossfire. Mugal dropped Mafune and bolted up the stairs. Murakoshi chased after him.**

**Mafune lifted his face off the floor. His glasses slipped from his face. He reached out to his daughter. "K-Katsura!"**

**"Father!" Human horror flashed across Katsura's face. Her father's spirit departed. His body lay still upon the floor.**

**"Katsura!" Ichinose squeezed her tight. He knew he was right. The aliens hadn't stolen her humanity.**

**Katsura looked at him and suddenly came alive in his embrace as if she just recognized him.**

**Ichinose rested his cheek on her forehead. "Oh, I don't care if you're a cyborg! Katsura, I'll still love you! None of this is your fault."**

**Katsura wriggled in his arms grasping his collar. He protectively held her while she struggled to break the alien's brainwashing. Then she relaxed and sat up. Ichinose looked into her tired, wet eyes and could see he had her back! She regained control of herself.**

**On the monitor, Mechagodzilla was pounding Godzilla with his energy beams. Even though Interpol routed the aliens, the real threat still reigned supreme.**

**"Either way, it doesn't matter," Katsura said. "The cyborg's controller operates off my mind. I don't think I can stop it. As long as I'm alive Mechagodzilla cannot be defeated!"**

**"No!" Ichinose grabbed her as tight as he could, closing his eyes. "I won't let you go!" He wanted to just press her within himself so he could keep her safe. Ichinose felt her arm embrace his neck then slip away. A gun went off. Her body jolted. "Katsura!" Ichinose cried. He released her. She smiled at him in victory as though she had saved him. Katsura's strength left her. She slumped in his arm.**

**"Katsura?" She did not respond. Ichinose took her limp form and buried his face in her hair. His body shook from grief.**

"She shot herself," Shindo said, "destroying the Mechagodzilla controller inside her body. As far as anyone could tell, Katsura died. But Ichinose was not about to give up...

**Ichinose sought Professor Miyajima's help. Miyajima had also been the aliens' prisoner. Under gunpoint they forced him to repair Mechagodzilla. He was the foremost authority on their technology.**

**"The good news," Professor Miyajima said after examining Katsura, "is that the Spacemen implanted a backup cybernetic organ. So in event of death, the backup extracts fluids from the body to provide oxygen for the brain." He tapped out his pipe. "The only threat right now is dehydration."**

**Ichinose stood from his seat. "She is alive."**

**"Dormant, but not dead."**

**Ichinose was worried. "Doctor, do you believe she is human?"**

**"Define human." Miyajima rested his elbow on a filing cabinet. "Is the soul in the head or in the heart? Her vitals are artificial. As for the brain and nervous system the Spacemen left those intact. Are you concerned on whether or not we're doing the right thing?"**

**"Tell me where you stand. Do you accept she is human or are you like everyone else?"**

**Miyajima put his hand on the young man's shoulder. "If there is any chance the real Katsura Mafune still lives in that body, then we must do our best to revive her."**

**Ichinose measured his words and accepted them, tentatively. "Can you help her?"**

**"Her vital organs are cybernetic. It's just a matter of repairing them. Judging by the wear, I'd say the Spacemen had revived her before. Now it's up to us to be just as successful. I think we can."**

"They failed." Shindo leaned against the wall. They were done switching clothes. "The professor worked with a team of surgeons for twelve hours. For Ichinose it was eternity times twelve. After all was said and done, the best Miyajima could do was bring her to a state equivalent to a coma...

**Ichinose felt a pulse under his finger tips from Katsura's wrist. Tepid warmth. Shallow breath.**

**"I believe the problem is this." The professor held up a device he had extracted from her abdomen. It had a hole burned into it by a laser beam.**

**"What is it?" Ichinose asked.**

**"A central processor. I recognize the circuitry. What I have here is a piece of Mechagodzilla's brain. It looks like what the Spacemen were trying to do was synch her organic brain to upgrade Mechagodzilla's. After all, technology has yet to outperform the processing power of the living mind. I left it out because I didn't think it would be of any use. But it looks like her cybernetic organs have been calibrated to function fully only when this is operational. I'm sorry."**

**"Sorry? Put it back."**

**"No." Miyajima placed the processor within a tray.**

**"You said you can't revive her without it!"**

**"I know what I said, Ichinose. I'm not repairing that processor. There's no telling what control it will exert over her. I know these Spacemen. My daughter and I had been their prisoner. They've threatened to kill her to force me to work for them, and then they broke their promise!" Miyajima took a breath. "Trust me. They wouldn't put all this hardware inside Katsura without a failsafe means of controlling her."**

**"She has a right to live!"**

**"It's a choice between her and the rest of the world."**

**"The Spacemen are gone!"**

**"Are they? We thought that once and they came back."**

**One of the doctors asked, "Shall we take her off life support?"**

**"Yes." Miyajima checked his watch. "Record her time of death at 11:32 pm."**

**One of the staff wrote down the time on a sheet of paper and clipped it with a number of other papers.**

**Ichinose knelt down beside the operating table and stroked Katsura's cheek with the back of his hand. He would always love her, but he was not going to let love ruin him. He forbade the tears to flow. Instead she would forever live in his memories. He vowed they should never go dim.**

**However, he was unaware that the Professor had been watching him. Suddenly Miyajima crumbled the sheet recording the time of her death, chucked it in a metal wastebasket, and ordered his team to put back on their gloves and surgical masks.**

**Professor Miyajima reinstalled the repaired Mechagodzilla processor and threw a series of switches. "That's it. She's on her own." Katsura's chest heaved. She took a long, deep gulp of air, and then exhaled. Miyajima's instruments showed a sudden spike in her cybernetic vital signs, which settled down to a normal, human metabolic rate.**

**Slowly, in that eerie mechanical fashion, her eyelids parted. Her glassy-eyed stare roamed about the room and then focused on Professor Miyajima. Warmth returned to her expression. "Father?" She spoke in a halting tone.**

**Miyajima smiled. "Someone is here to see you." He motioned Ichinose to come forward. She didn't seem to recognize him.**

**"Don't you remember me?" Ichinose asked.**

**She looked back up at Miyajima for support.**

**The professor asked Ichinose to be patient and leave the room. Around 3 am Katsura was sitting up and quite talkative. Ichinose could hear her from where he was sitting in the hall. It was difficult to imagine she was anything other than an ordinary young woman.**

**When the Professor called Ichinose back in, he restrained the young man by the arm at the door. "She doesn't recall anything from the time you were a prisoner, which means she isn't aware that her father is dead. I'm not sure if she's repressing what happened or if it's the processor. I must be honest. I can't help feeling I made the same mistake when I repaired Mechagodzilla."**

**Ichinose leaned close to the Professor's ear. He spoke with his anger tightly reigned. "You believed in her once. And I need you to continue believing with me. I can't take any more doubts."**

**"If I have to choose what's best for either you or her…"**

**"If you want what's best for me, choose her."**

**Their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. Professor Miyajima relented. "All right. Say nothing about her father until I say she's ready."**

**Miyajima released Ichinose.**

**"Ichinose!" Katsura called with her hands held out for him. "It's about time I see a familiar face. Maybe you can tell…" She watched the Professor. After Miyajima stepped out she finished her sentence. "Maybe you can tell me why I'm here."**

**They clasped hands. Her warm palm gripped possessively. It reassured Ichinose she wanted him.**

**"How are you feeling?" he asked.**

**"How am I supposed to feel? They won't let me talk to my father." She pulled him closer. "Why don't you get me a phone? There's a jack above the baseboard right down there." She turned his attention with her gaze toward the jack in the wall.**

**Her conspiratorial tone concerned Ichinose. Was it embedded programming kicking in, trying to con him into helping her contact someone she shouldn't? He had to admit that despite how much he cared for her, he really hadn't gotten to know her well. As it goes, love races ahead of reason.**

**"I don't know if they would want me to do that." He grinned nervously.**

**"They have no right to hold me here." Then her mouth opened wide as though a horrible thought came to her. That haunted look he knew so well returned. "Did they find out who my father was working for?"**

**There was a crash in the other room.**

**"Professor?" Ichinose called.**

**He received no answer. Ichinose kissed Katsura and stood to leave. She clutched his hand tighter. That made his heart melt all over again. Her hand holding him back and with her expression asking him to stay. He kissed her once more. "I'll be right back."**

**Ichinose stepped into the next room and found Miyajima on the floor, unconscious, and two mysterious figures. "Who are you?"**

**Mogga fired his laser. The beam blasted Ichinose against the wall. His body slid down to the floor. Goras smiled in satisfaction. He flicked his chin toward the operating room. "Get her."**

"Once Katsura was back in their hands," the parallel world Shindo concluded, "Goras and his cohorts rebuilt Mechagodzilla."

"Are Katsura and Mechagodzilla mentally linked?"

"In a way. Why?"

"Ichinose was right about Katsura. Mechagodzilla said he wants to be loved by the people of my world. Now where would he get any notion of what love is?"

The lock unbolted and the cell door opened, closing their conversation. Mogga stepped within the doorframe and pointed to the right set of clothes, but the wrong Shindo. "You, come with me."

#

For the people of the fishing community on Manazura Island, the rising morning sun brought a shock when they saw not one, but two Godzillas up in the forested hills. An evacuation effort commenced. At the same time, the spectacle brought a crowd to the shore of the mainland across the narrow channel. The military was hard pressed to roll in their tanks and deploy troops when the prime defensive positions were already occupied by onlookers with cameras.

Yomo received a call from his boss, Yamashita, over his cell. He assured Yamashita that everything was under control. Or rather this new Godzilla had everything under control. "Please don't ask me to explain. We're only doing what he asks."

He then grimaced and held the phone away from his ear. Yamshita's voice was bellowing from the receiver. "Miki, can you talk to him?"

Miki took Yomo's cell and did her best to calm Yamashita down. "This new Godzilla wants to talk to us. What's he doing now? Trying to keep our Godzilla amused. What do I mean by 'our' Godzilla? Exactly that. There's ours and then there's this other one that came from…I'm not sure where. He appeared out of a bright, swirling light like the other monsters.

"I can tell you this much, I glimpsed images in his mind and he comes from a world just like ours, except the time period looks like the 1970s. So we should designate the new one as the 'Showa Godzilla' and ours as the 'Heisei Godzilla' to distinguish between the two."

Yamashita liked the idea and asked what the Godzillas were doing.

"Our Godzilla is checking out the Showa one. He's confused. What's puzzling him is that he instinctively knows he's looking at his double but his double doesn't resemble him physically. Instead of three rows of large fins, the new one has two small ones flanking a large one. His tail is shorter. His girth is leaner, and his face is sort of pugnacious. Cross a puppy with a lizard's and you get the picture. You can see that? Sorry, I didn't know you were at Army HQ." Miki glanced across the channel toward the olive-colored tents staked among the dock warehouses.

"Where are Yomo and I? The Mafune estate has a three-story tower. We're sitting on the roof. No! We're fine. Sayoko? She's in the house. We found a control room in the cellar. She's trying to figure out the technology. We haven't found Shindo. We're hoping he's all right. What's that? Oh no! OK. You gotta go. I understand. Bye."

Miki closed up the phone and handed it back to Yomo. "Great!"

"What's wrong?" Yomo asked.

"General Aso from G-Force has arrived. I bet he's ready to burst a blood vessel now that there are two Godzillas. If he starts a shooting war we're going to lose a powerful friend." She nodded toward the Showa Godzilla.

#

It didn't take long until Mogga came a second time, this time with several guards. They yanked Shindo out of the cell and down the hall. Mogga's clothes and hair looked ruffled as if he had been in a fight.

"Problems?" Shindo said.

Mogga growled, sounding like an infuriated gorilla.

The guards escorted Shindo to the living room where Katsura waited with her hands behind her back. Mogga stopped him by a chair. Hanging over it was his jacket with a laser beam hole burned through the back.

"Leave us," she said to the guards. After they left she nodded toward the chair. "You may take your jacket."

Shindo picked it up and slipped his finger through the burn hole. An uneasy twitter coursed through him when the thought sank in that he was now wearing the clothes of a dead man. He gently folded his jacket over his arm in a personal moment of silence for the other Shindo, and then squared it away to focus on business. "Mind if I sit?"

Katsura slipped out a silver blaster.

"I see this is going to be formal." He sat anyway. "I usually can gauge what a person is thinking by their facial expressions. But you have one of the most impenetrable masks. I must say I have met my match."

Her jaw tightened. "I had this argument with the Shindo of my world. Don't bother trying to convince me that I am just as much a human being as anyone else."

"Neither am I going to let you convince me the robot in the silo is more charming than you."

Her posture loosened. Shindo thought he caused a reaction. Nothing melts a woman's front like flattery.

"My superiors have only one question," she said. Her manner turned frosty again. "Keep strictly to the point. What do your people in the parallel Earth know about our work?"

"Nothing. Is that close enough to the point?"

"Shindo Yamaguchi," she raised her sights for his head, "our commander wants you dead, but he's too busy to remember you're here. Provoke me and I'll remind him."

"Then who wants information from me?"

"His lieutenant, Mogga, and me."

"And you, too? All right. Since you put it that way. We're aware something is disrupting the boundaries of time and space. That's all. I'm assuming that's your doing."

"Have your people been in contact with anyone from this Earth?"

"You said one question." Shindo settled back in his sit and crossed his legs.

"The first one was Mogga's. This is mine."

"And who should we have met?"

Katsura maintained a stony front.

"I see. In that case, no one—that I know of." Shindo laced his fingers together. "Anything more, or have I outlasted my usefulness?"

He watched the trigger. His insides jittered.

Her finger didn't move.

He rolled fresh saliva through his dry mouth and glanced up at her face. This time he did get a reaction. It was one of satisfaction. She evidently had read correctly she had made him nervous.

"You will be escorted back to your room," she said, lowering the gun.

"Let's talk more about you instead. No, wait! You don't want to talk about you." Shindo shifted into a more comfortable position in the chair. "So let's talk about Mechagodzilla. He confided something with me I doubt he has told anyone else. He said he wants the people of my Earth to love him as a hero. Now where would a machine get the idea it needs to be loved?"

The level of tension in the room became electric. Shindo had never before been stared at so coldly and so piercingly. Katsura brushed past him and left the room. Moments later the guards returned and took him back up to his makeshift cell.

#

The Showa Godzilla realized his presence in this universe was causing quite a stir. He motioned to the Heisei Godzilla to wait a moment then leaned toward Miki, inviting her to use her telepathy to get acquainted.

"Good!" Miki rubbed her hands together. "He's ready to talk."

"He's ready to talk," Yomo relayed over the wireless to Yamashita. "I say again, he's ready to talk." The Army had sent over a launch with some food, bottled water, and the wireless set so Miki and Yomo could stay in touch with their chief Yamashita and General Aso from G-Force.

Miki synched her thoughts with the funny, pugnacious looking giant. His mind was well ordered. No ego to bruise. Honest, yet not naïve, and tough enough to take a straight question.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

His answer was to the point: A parallel Earth. It looks like yours. Same seas. Same land. Same sky. Life different. Some life exists back home that doesn't exist here.

"Life" was his word for both animals and humans. Miki passed this on to Yomo, and he repeated it to Yamashita.

"Why are you so," Miki tried to think of an appropriate way to put it.

Godzilla supplied the words: Why am I kind to you?

He now searched her mind. She could sense him filing through her mental vocabulary. When he found the closest words he telepathically highlighted them. Miki snickered.

"What is it?" Yomo asked.

"He said he's been through a conversion experience."

Now Yomo laughed.

Godzilla grunted at them to get serious. He filled in the details with his memories. When Mothra was a caterpillar, she tried to persuade him and Rodan to save the Earth from another creature that had fallen from the stars. He and Rodan refused. They weren't threatened. Mankind was. The caterpillar trundled off to face the demon from space on her own. The demon nearly pulverized her with its energy beams, until Godzilla and Rodan interceded. Somehow letting her die would be like letting one of their own die. The number of animals of their size was few, unlike the old days long ago.

Because saving Mothra saved mankind, mankind had stopped attacking him. He continued protecting man. He showed Miki many monsters he had fought. His heroics for reasons unknown to him had expanded his mental faculties and allowed him to perform astounding physical feats.

"What were you like before your, um, conversion experience?"

Miki expected this Godzilla to have been born among human beings like Baby Godzilla of her world. Instead she discovered images of trains being smashed, cars crushed, and people fleeing. Cities were set ablaze. A face pulled up from the hot flames. Its features were of the savage monster she had known all her life! Godzilla's roar exploded in her mind.

Miki's eyes shot open. Her chest was sore from her heart's pounding. She blinked, looking around. The sun was bright. The grounds quiet. Warily she looked up. In his heart, at his very core, the Showa Godzilla was no different than their Godzilla. He had no remorse about what he had done, which in a sense made him seem as if he really hadn't changed so much than he found a more convenient way to live. But then, Miki had to remind herself she wouldn't think any worse of a boy who decided to stop crushing ants and kept them in an ant farm.

Considering that General Aso was headquartered across the channel, she discussed with Yomo if it would be a good idea to relay what the Showa Godzilla had shown her.

"We should," Yomo said. "Our superiors are expecting a thorough report."

"The general may never trust the Showa Godzilla if Aso knows his past."

"That responsibility is not on our shoulders."

Godzilla resented being ignored, and since his Showa double took more interest in the human female, he lost interest in them both. He waded through the trees to the ridge overlooking the channel. Evacuees crowded both coasts on either side of the narrow straight. The tiny figures cowered. Their cries of terror reached his ears in soft murmurs. Godzilla let out a long throaty roar. Like insects, they scurried in search of shelter. Godzilla snorted in satisfaction.

Two frigates and a destroyer reinforced the ground troops. The sight of the ships riled him. He bared his teeth at them.

A squadron of F-15's soared overhead. Godzilla's fin plates flared causing panic to erupt among the people on both sides of the channel.

The Showa Godzilla turned from Miki, seeing the Godzilla of this world brewing up for a fight.

In a warehouse-turned-command center, G-Force commander General Aso peered through his binoculars at the drama unfolding on Manazura Island. "Wait until both Godzaillas are on the cliff."

His subordinates relayed his orders.

Godzilla was about to blast the ships with his heat ray when his jaws were suddenly grabbed. He spun around, wide eyed and shocked to find his Showa double was muzzling him!

"Fire!" Aso growled.

Naval gunfire thundered from the channel. Plumes of smoke billowed from the guns as white hot shells darted at the cliff. The maser tanks lashed the Godzillas with their blue energy beams and the fighter's launched ASM's.

Miki and Yomo couldn't watch. Mankind was attacking the Showa Godzilla unprovoked.

Yet the Showa Godzilla persevered under the pelting and grabbed his double's jaws before he could unleash his lethal atomic beam.

The Heisei Godzilla wrenched his jaws free, infuriated that his double tried to muzzle him. A warning hiss spat from his mouth.

With time critical, Showa Godzilla barreled into him, knocking over, and then dragged him away from the line of fire by the tail.

The guns stopped, and the human cries of terror turned to whoops of relief, which turned into laughter as they watched one Godzilla drag the other kicking and screaming from harm's way.

Miki couldn't help feeling bad for her Godzilla. He had been humiliated. The kinder Godzilla might have stopped a fight, but the way he handled it might have made things worse.

#

Katsura was in the control room in the basement performing the systems check on the instruments that monitored the performance of Mechagodzilla's functions. Mechagodzilla watched her via video link and spoke to her often. He also had monitors that permitted him to see what was happening in the parallel Earth.

"You are fortunate to be a cyborg," he told her. "Emotions give life so much color. But sometimes those colors can be grim. Right now I am so perplexed. So perplexed."

"Why are you perplexed?" she asked as she worked.

"There are two Godzillas. Will Hammer and Anvil be able to kill both of them? One, sure! Two?" Up on the overhead monitor, Mechagodzilla shook his head in dismay, looking at the other screen. "And I can't switch places with two Godzillas! Even if I could, thousands of people will see it."

"What does it matter? You won't be staying on Earth."

Mechagodzilla chuckled derisively. "Goras and Mogga are selfish. They won't mention me to their parallel-world brothers. Which means when a ship comes to pick them up, it won't have the cargo capacity to take me along.

"But that's OK," he raised a metallic finger for emphasis. "I have a plan." He confided in her his notion to win the hearts of the people of the other Earth through heroic action. "And you, Katsura, can speak for me. Mothra has her Twin Fairies. I have you. What do you think?"

She didn't say. Katsura was too preoccupied with what Shindo had said to her. "What makes you think you have emotions?"

"What?" Mechagodzilla's head swiveled from the other screen to stare down on her from the monitor. "Listen to the inflections in my voice. Look on your instruments and watch the power levels fluctuate with my moods." He paused and tilted his head thoughtfully. "Ah, are you questioning the fact that I am a person and you are not? Be honest."

Katsura frowned at him over the link. "Why are you certain I am not?"

"Oh," Mechagodzilla purred. "You've been talking to one of the Shindos again. I hear one was shot trying to escape. You should shoot the other. Having prisoners is fun, but you can't do much with them. Goras is right. We shouldn't keep any. Besides, they trouble you."

"They don't bother me."

"Men can't accept you for who you are because you are too beautiful. They want a woman not a cyborg."

"You think you're an expert on humans?"

"I watch TV! Now, Katsura, you asked me why I am certain you are not a person. That's not the point. Let's say that somewhere inside you the flesh and blood Katsura Mafune still exists. What would happen if you were to let her take control? She would not be able to love a man the way he would want to be loved. She could not bear children. When the shock hits her that she cannot be a part of human society she will first self destruct emotionally then destroy herself physically. She will destroy you to escape her unhappiness. I don't want that to happen. I am your friend." Mechagodzilla's face drew close on the monitor. "I want you to stay just as you are."

#

After some effort, Miki raised General Aso over the wireless. The General intimidated her, but she was too furious to be cowed. Ordering him as though he were a dimwitted subordinate, she forbade him from opening fire without her say so. Yet, the General was unmoved. He spoke in an even tone.

"Your report states this other Godzilla ravaged cities on his parallel Earth."

"You're cherry picking what you want to hear, General."

"You say he acts by choice. What's to stop him from switching from being a protector to a destroyer? Did someone teach him how to be civilized?"

"Listen, we're stuck with him. You want to give him a good reason to team up against us with our Godzilla? Keep shooting! Saegusa out."

Miki thrust the headset back to Yomo.

Showa Godzilla brushed the shell fragments out of his craggy gray scales. The noonday sun was distressfully hot. Mammals shouldn't be exposed to direct sunlight for long. Godzilla shielded Miki and Yomo with his shadow.

Surprised by his conscientiousness, the two humans thanked him.

Heisei Godzilla eyed them indignantly.

"You wouldn't feel so left out if just step over here," Miki called out to him.

He narrowed his gaze at her. A hiss slithered in his throat.

The gentler Godzilla grunted for her attention. She synched back up with him telepathically. He told her why he came. Aliens from his Earth wanted to contact their parallel kin in her world. A rescue ship might come, but an invasion fleet would be more likely. The aliens had a guardian: Mechagodzilla.

Because she was a crewmember aboard the Mechagodzilla built by the United Nations, Miki wasn't frightened until Godzilla showed her from his memories the walking arsenal he had fought. Missiles in the fingers, missiles in the toes, lasers in the eyes, mouth, and chest—she shuddered at the fire power.

Mechagodzilla is stronger than me, Godzilla said in thought. I need you to help me convince my double to help. You can show him what I have seen.

"That's a tall order," Miki commented. "Do you think we can do it?"

Showa Godzilla stepped aside, expecting her to make an attempt. She took a deep breath and then closed her eyes tight, concentrating hard to puncture into Heisei Godzilla's consciousness.

His mind tightened like a flexed muscle, and then relaxed. She gave him images of the rolling sea, sun-kissed beaches, lush jungles, the places he called home, and then showed him the ashes that would be left behind in the wake of this incoming threat, this space titanium-plated machine bristling with rockets and laser cannons.

Showa Godzilla concurred with a grunt.

Heisei Godzilla sensed their concern. A moment passed. He thumped the ground with his tail and tossed his head toward the sea.

"Let's go eat!" Miki interpreted the gesture. "I don't understand."

Showa Godzilla did. This was a choice. Which species was more important: mankind or theirs? The answer came effortlessly.

He turned to follow the bestial Godzilla into the sea.

"Wait!" Miki pleaded. "When are these aliens coming?"

It was no use. Showa Godzilla closed his mind off from her.

Yet Miki could sense that he wasn't abandoning mankind. He had a plan. However, she could see one flaw. Like people, Showa Godzilla didn't know himself as well as he thought.

#

Katsura paced the living room.

"Let's say the flesh and blood Katsura took control she would destroy you," Mechagodzilla had said. "I want you to stay as you are."

Stay as you are…stay as what? She was a cyborg. Could she change that? No!

Mechagodzilla liked her for who she is, but she didn't like herself. She was confused, empty and lonely. Was that what he wanted her to be—confused, empty and lonely?

She went to her father's den and stood in the doorway, as she had done so often, and stared at his empty desk. He had spent many hours here, the room felt like it still held a bit of his essence, but when she tried to reach out to it, she realized the room was just a room and she was only responding to the echo of her memories.

Yet she came back yearning for something she didn't have a name for. She just knew it by its absence.

Katsura threw on her overcoat, left the house and wandered to the Pacific side of Manazura Island. The coast ended abruptly in a cliff. Down below, the breakers crashed against the rocks. The wind stirred her lustrous hair. She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing someone who cared for her would be holding her instead.

There was one person she remembered who loved her. He would hold her if he were here. He would tell her everything was all right.

Katsura fought hard to hold it in. The throat muscles stretched and strained. Her lip quivered. Finally, she just blurted it out.

"Ichinose, I miss! I miss you so much!" Katsura bowed her head. "Please," she said softly to whoever would listen, "don't let me be alone anymore."

A sea beast burst from the depths like a reptilian Poseidon. His wet orange and black scales shimmered. He looked like a relative of the spinosaurid dinosaurs. He had the crocodile-like snout, expansive dorsal fin, and three-fingered hands. His head sported an extra fin like the crest on a Roman helmet. He peered over the ledge of the cliff face with ease.

Katsura's mouth opened into a wide smile. "Titanosaurus!" She wiped off her cheek. "You shouldn't be out here in broad daylight. What if someone sees you? Huh?" She spoke to him in a soothing purr, rubbing the tip of his snout.

He snorted in satisfaction. In his simple understanding, so long as they were alive all was well. All the same she was happy to see him because he was happy to see her.

Gently he nudged her, nearly tipping her off her feet.

"Now! Now!" She mocked a scolding tone, patting his snout. "I can't play with you anymore. You're too big."

Titanosaurus folded his head crest fin in dismay.

The truth of the matter was that she was too burdened by her troubles to be a decent companion. Titanosaurus sense it. He settled his chin on the cliff and gazed at her dolefully out of empathy. He puffed out his breath as though the weight of the world were on his shoulders, too.

Katsura laughed, a first in what seemed like a lifetime.

"All right. Listen. The Spacemen will be leaving soon. Then it will be just you and me!"

Titanosaurus straightened up and trumpeted his approval.

"Easy now! We don't want to get the Spacemen out here do we? They'll make you do bad things again. After they're gone, I'll think of some new games we can play. Sound good?"

Titanosaurus bobbed his head.

"It was wonderful of you to come back." She lay across the tip of his snout. "I only wish we could go back to the time before the Spacemen came, before my father became obsessed with his work."

#

The search for food took a new twist for Showa Godzilla. Now at a hundred meters tall, he needed to hunt deeper into the bowels of the ocean for food large enough to eat.

There was no light at these depths. The canyon walls and the sea were two shades of black. The water pressed against him like a cold jelly. He had to hunt by touch rather than by sight.

The soft sediment became prickly against the soles of his feet.

Bones—a sure sign he entered his prey's lair.

A sudden shift in the water pushed against him. From that he guessed how far his prey retreated and then stalked deeper into the murky canyon.

He felt a second shift in the current, a strong one. He was close.

Godzilla flashed his fins illuminating the canyon walls. The light revealed an enormous Kraken. It was twice Godzilla's size and its tentacles had ten times the reach of his arms. Its ropey limbs seized him around the neck and ankle and yanked him within the embrace of its eight sessile arms. He pushed away, straining with all his might to stay out of the Kraken's snapping beak. One snap and the water would turn warm with his bloody entrails.

From his ambush point, Heisei Godzilla fired his blue flame, striking the squid monster from the flank. The Kraken writhed in agony yet it didn't loosen its grip. To the contrary, its tentacles constricted. Air bubbles spewed from Showa Godzilla's mouth.

He pierced his claws into the soft flesh behind the hardened disks of its eyes. The Kraken's convulsions whipped up a cloud of sediment. As a last ditch effort to escape, the giant squid squirted ink into the water. Its bitter taste seeped into Godzilla's mouth.

Heisei Godzilla closed in to help, but his aid wasn't needed. Showa Godzilla, up to his elbows in filmy, squid flesh, sank his clawed hands into the Kraken's head, grabbed its brain and pulled. The Kraken shuddered fitfully then slowly sank to the sea floor.

Showa Godzilla proved his worth as a hunter. Heisei Godzilla no longer resented him for knocking him on the ground and dragging him while getting shot at. It was worth enduring a hundred insults if it meant keeping one fine hunter in the fold, and since Showa Godzilla annoyed him only once, all was forgiven.

On an uncharted island Baby Godzilla padded down the hot shore, his belly grumbling. The tide washed across his ankles as he waited expectantly.

The Godzillas surfaced from the Pacific dragging a squid the likes of which Baby had never seen. He regarded in awe the bone-crushing beak and its ropey tentacles which could choke the life out of living fossils like the Godzillas with ease. Now it was lunch.

The three kaiju feasted. Its greasy flesh tasted sweet to their pallets.

Fully gorged, they succumbed to torpor upon the warm sands and didn't wake until the breeze turned cool. Heisei Godzilla assumed dominance, roaring for his parallel-world partner and Baby to get up. They would follow the current south where food was abundant and human presence minimal.

Showa Godzilla, without noticing the effect of the fine meal and fellowship, assented with a grunt. Racial memories whispered to him seductively. Your group may number only three, it said, but it's enough to live the life of your ancestors.

His higher nature struggled to regain control. You forget, it said, Mechagodzilla is coming!

Showa Godzilla had difficulty understanding why this was important.

They are evil, his conscience explained.

Baby Godzilla sensed Showa Godzilla's struggle. His underdeveloped telepathic skills picked up fuzzy images from Showa Godzilla's mind of monsters raining fire and death upon human civilization. His eyes glowed red in fear for the humans that had nurtured him at birth.

Heisei Godzilla returned to the shore, glaring at the other two for loafing around. The sun had passed its zenith. The shadows drew longer. It was time to go. But since Baby was distressed he waited, which put Showa Godzilla in an awkward situation. He captured the Heisei one's attention but he was uncertain how to bring home the urgency in returning to Manazura Island when he himself yearned to reclaim his heritage, but like any hero, he made up his mind to find a way.

Meanwhile, miles away, on Manazura Island, Miki stood among the tall, dry grass on the cliff's edge facing the Pacific where Navy ships sailed on patrol. Scanning with her binoculars, she could not see so much as a ripple. Would the Godzillas come back? If they did, whose nature would dominate?

She continued to scan the sea, slowly, carefully.

Nothing.

#

The news media had picked up on Miki's reports and broadcasted them throughout the afternoon, compounding the number of curiosity seekers. People were further emboldened when the cameras caught the "Good" Godzilla dragging away the "Destructive" one from General Aso's guns.

As the daylight hours waned, tension built on the docks. People didn't need Miki's psychic ability to figure out the risk. They feared the Good Godzilla would revert back to a destructive monster, like a pet turning feral in the wild.

Neither did they forget the foretelling of an impending alien invasion. Will the Godzillas come back to save them, or help destroy them?

Miki was nearly asleep when her ESP sensed their presence out at sea. She searched their hearts and found no aggression. Somehow Showa Godzilla did it! He convinced Heisei Godzilla to join him!

She jumped up on her feet and waved at them from the edge of the cliff as they came ashore. Like a jubilant child, she followed after them as they strode to the abandoned Mafune residence. The ground rumbled under their footfalls.

Yomo waited at the foot of the tower with the wireless.

"Yamashita wants to know the verdict." He held the headset out to her.

She put it on and spoke into the mike. "This is Saegusa."

She jumped when she heard her voice boom from loudspeakers on the mainland. It was as if the whole world was holding its breath for her words.

"Well?" Yamashita's voice crackled over the headset. His voice also boomed from the speakers for the benefit of the crowd. "Are they on our side?"

"What do you think?" She replied, turning toward the two behemoths standing vigil at the far end of the estate—the pugnacious hero and the engine of destruction—neither making a threatening move. "Yes, they are on our side. I repeat: They are on our side!"

Cheers erupted from the docks, along the coast, and on the hilltops. Showa Godzilla fanned the flames of admiration by taking a bow. Unfamiliar with this sense of goodwill, Heisei Godzilla fidgeted. Yet he clearly enjoyed the warmth.

The only one who was not celebrating was a certain alien war machine that watched from one of his screens in his silo. Mechagodzilla seethed in jealousy. They were getting the love he wanted.

#

Katsura returned to the house and sat up in her father's bedroom and paged through the family photo album by the fading light of the day. The next page contained photos of Titanosaurus. In one photo, Mafune held a tape measure in one hand while he steadied the dinosaur's head with the other. Titanosaurus was barely a meter tall when Mafune found him while doing research on the Bonin Islands.

Another photo showed Katsura with her arms wrapped tight around Titanosaurus's neck, smiling big for the camera. Katsura broke a small grin at her impish expression in the photo. She could still hear her mother scolding her. "Don't choke him!" she said. Katsura was five years old when that picture was taken. She and Titanosaurus were like playmates when she was a girl.

Few pictures were taken after her mother died. Katsura took one of Mafune when she was seventeen. They had gone into seclusion by then. His hair was gray and unkempt. He was pouring fluid into a beaker. She remembered telling him he looked like Einstein only ten times smarter! Goras yanked her aside by the arm. "Don't bother Dr. Mafune. You're a cyborg now. Let that sink in."

Inside the back cover was a newspaper clipping with Ichinose's picture. It was his obituary. In part it read: "Ichinose-san survived a peculiar gun shot wound and went missing shortly after his recovery. After a two year search, the family of Akira Ichinose acknowledges his passing."

A tear dripped onto the picture.

"Crying, Katsura?"

Her heart skipped a beat. Her eyes went wide. She gasped. "Father!"

Dr. Shinzo Mafune sat down on the end of the bed. Katsura winced at the sound of the bedsprings crunching under his weight. His pleased expression started to look hurt. "Aren't you happy to see me?"

Warily she nodded. "Yes, Father." She shook her head and dropped her face into her lap. "What's happening to me? I just don't understand! I'm going out of my mind!"

"What? Oh, nonsense!" Mafune got down on one knee and lifted her chin. "You're not crazy." He studiously straightened his glasses. "Take it from one who would know!"

Katsura's lips formed a trembling smile. The scientific community had called him insane.

"That's it! That's what I want to see." Dr. Mafune looked at her soberly. "It's been a long time since I have seen you smile."

"Father, what's the point? I'm not anymore real than you-"

Shinzo stood up sharply. "Who says you're not real?"

"Father, I've been killed and brought back to life, I even killed myself and still someone was able to bring me back! Only broken dolls can be made like new, not dead people."

"Do you love me?"

"Well, yes!" She paused. Suddenly she understood what he was getting at. "Father! It's not that simple! How am I to know my feelings are real? Look what they-"

"They!" Mafune paced. "Don't let them tell you who and what you are. They're not even human themselves!" Mafune stood facing the sunset. "The black hole has consumed their planet. Leaderless. And still they think they're on a mission! If anyone has lost contact with reality it's them."

He turned from the window. "Besides they didn't steal your humanity. That had already been done." Dr. Mafune scowled in anger, anger toward himself. "Parental love is a child's cornerstone."

After his colleagues threw him out off the university, Dr. Mafune obsessed in his research. Katsura never doubted he loved her, but like her mother, kept out of the way, expecting nothing from him. The work took precedence over family.

Dr. Mafune took her hands and stood her up. "Katsura, you are my daughter. Always have been. Always will be. No one has the power to change that."

Katsura cast her doubts away and grabbed hold of him.

He embraced her.

She buried her cheek in his and squeezed him tight, soaking in his warmth.

"It is time for you to leave this house," Dr. Mafune said. "There is nothing here for you anymore."

Katsura sensed by his tone that he had fulfilled his purpose. "Stay, father. Please stay."

He continued to hold her. She closed her eyes. She found at last what she had been looking for, what she needed so badly. Her father's love.

Katsura opened her eyes and found herself standing alone. It was dark outside. How late it was, she had no idea, but she felt renewed as though she had awoken from a deep sleep.

No, it was more than renewal. For the first time in her life she felt whole.

She switched on the lamp on the bureau. There, at the foot of the lamp was the photo album open to Ichinose's photo from the newspaper clipping. Katsura took the album, switched off the lamp, and left the room with a sense of purpose.


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

A Spaceman rushed downstairs to the control room and saluted Goras. "The generator is repaired and fully functional."

"Excellent!" Goras punched his fist into his open palm. "Did Katsura finish replacing the shorted circuits?"

Mogga slapped the panels of the control banks shut. "Yes. We're ready to proceed."

"Summon the others," Goras thrust his finger at Mogga in excitement. "We cross over to the parallel universe tonight!"

The Spacemen strapped on their side arms and changed into their silver uniforms and helmets. They took their posts in the control room. The monitors displayed the Mafune estate in the parallel Earth. Both Godzillas milled about the grounds, waiting.

The wait was over.

"Unleash Anvil," Goras paused to savor the moment, "now!"

#

Back on the tower rooftop, Miki huddled alone under a woolen army blanket. The night air had turned chilly. Floodlights from the ships in the channel panned over the island, and where their lights couldn't reach helicopter gun ships panned their lights from above. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

Then the crickets stopped chirping.

The ground rumbled. She beheld the swirling vortex light. It clawed through the soil of the unkempt yard in shafts. Soon another light, the kind which glowed like brimstone, consumed the radiance of the vortex. A fireball erupted from the ground and ascended into the night sky. The troops and civilians gazed with the horror one would have at the sight of an omen.

"What is it?" Yamashita's voice crackled over Miki's headset. The fireball coalesced into a raging inferno.

"I don't know!" Miki yelled into the speaker, shielding her eyes.

The fireball burst, turning night into day. The energy wave nearly blew Miki off the roof. The Godzillas twisted away from the explosion, shielding their eyes. The people across the channel hid their faces. It was as if God had spoken.

But it was no heavenly father that appeared from the light. Aloft in the sky was King Ghidrah, flapping his golden, bat-like wings. His three heads and twin tails wriggled like vipers. Remnant flames licked off his scales.

#

"Anvil unleashed!" Mogga growled, juiced up on adrenaline.

"Good." Goras licked his lips. He could almost taste victory.

The monitors showed the Godzillas flashing their fins, brewing up to blast Ghidrah with atomic fire.

"All right, Mogga," Goras leered, "give them the Hammer."

"Give them the Hammer," Mogga relayed the order to their subordinates.

The other Spacemen flipped switches and turned dials.

#

While Ghidrah held everyone's attention, a second monster soared across the grounds with the force of a whirlwind and bashed into the Godzillas from behind. They crashed upon the grass and crushed trees under their bodies. The concussion rolled Miki across the roof. Desperately, she gripped the shingles.

"Hammer" landed a stone's throw away from Miki. He was a scaly biped with a pair of wings and a sail stretching from his back. His neck and head arched gracefully like a bird's, tapering to a metal beak. Its hands were like two giant meat hooks. The beast clanged them together in glee.

Showa Godzilla knew this creature well.

It was the space monster Gigan.

Their heads aching, the Godzillas got up. Showa tried to coordinate with Heisei, but the Heisei Godzilla picked his target, the biggest one—Ghidrah.

He let loose his atomic flame, but the beam deflected off of Ghidrah's gilded scales to no effect. Heisei tried again with the same frustrating result.

"No, Godzilla," Mechagodzilla crowed from within his silo, watching the fight. "This Ghidrah is not the bio-engineered Dorat construct you battled in your world." His voice rasped into a spiteful hiss. "This is the real thing!"

King Ghidrah landed beside Gigan and spewed plasma bolts from his mouths. One step…then another…the beams forced Godzilla back. He roared defiantly. Ghidrah merely jingled his alien chirps and slashed away. The arcs danced across Godzilla's legs, chest, arms, face, and neck.

Gigan emitted an electric screech to Ghidrah. He thumped his chest and then shook his claw at Heisei Godzilla. He wanted the "new boy." Ghidrah relented and turned toward the "old timer," who was bounding toward him.

The three-headed dragon flapped up and kicked Showa Godzilla in the face with both heels, sending him tumbling into the trees. Ghidrah then lit up the ground. Leaves puffed to smoke. Bark splintered from the lightning volleys. Godzilla tossed and rolled in the pummeling, trying to regain his footing.

Gigan clanged his hooks together, thumped his sides with his elbows, and then screeched at the "new boy" to attack. Heisei Godzilla brewed up and fired his blue atomic ray across the field. Gigan's hooks crossed before his face blocking the shot. Gigan then swung his arms away and lanced a laser beam from his forehead. The light beam burned like a red-hot poker in Godzilla's chest.

The Spacemen hooted and grunted excitedly as they watched the battle over the monitors.

"Our operation," Mogga clenched his fist, "is succeeding! Hammer and Anvil are decimating the Godzillas! "

"Did you have any doubt?" Goras grinned. He looked up at the monitor displaying Mechagodzilla. "Join them!"

Mechagodzilla swiveled his head toward their video link. "Now? I'm not even in my disguise." He indicated to his titanium-plated body as though he weren't probably dressed for the occasion. "My part doesn't start until after the Godzillas are killed."

"The hour is dark," Goras growled. "The humans won't figure what's going on until morning. There's plenty of time for you to be sprayed in the synthetic flesh."

Mechagodzilla uttered a noise which made him sound like he was clearing his throat. "If you haven't noticed, Goras, one of the stations is conspicuously empty." He referred to Katsura's unmanned post. "I can't function to my full potential without her."

"The sides will be three to two! Use your onboard processor! I want to get this fight over with now!"

"Foresight, Goras! Foresight! I know you well. Let's say we win. You'll become overconfident. You'll think we won't need Katsura and eliminate her. That would be a mistake. I am merely watching out for our best interests, as per my function." Mechagodzilla bowed over the monitor as though he were a good robot minding its master's wishes.

Enraged, Goras kicked his control bank and pointed at the monitors displaying the battle. "Get over there!"

"Get Katsura and I'll go," Mechagodzilla parlayed. "I trust you didn't dispose of her already."

Goras ground his teeth. "Mogga."

"Commander." Mogga clicked his heels and headed upstairs to fetch Katsura.

#

General Aso bit his knuckle as he watched the battle from across the channel. He never imagined Godzilla, two of them no less, would be the frontline troops defending Japan. It was unprecedented. All hope was invested in the two dinosaurs—and the dinosaurs were losing.

Ghidrah pinned Showa Godzilla under an inexhaustible rain of plasma discharges while Gigan sadistically laser beamed Heisei Godzilla in eyes, ears, and mouth. He jeered, thumping his sides with his elbows. If this animal was the best the parallel Earth had to offer, it was indeed ripe for the picking!

Then Ghidrah sensed the presence of Rodan. He even heard the giant pteranodon bellow. He turned around only to find a tiny human girl standing upon a rooftop.

"Made you look!" Miki yelled and flung a shingle at him. She had fooled him with a psychic projection.

Showa Godzilla took advantage of the distraction and spun Ghidrah around and delivered rapid blows to all three of Ghidrah's heads, doubled the space dragon over with a knee to the gut, and for the coup de grâce he did a 360 spin and belted Ghidrah into the woods with the swing of his tail. Godzilla then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and assumed a fighting stance.

Gigan was still blasting away at Heisei Godzilla. Showa noted Gigan's location and let Ghidrah recover. Too eager to even the score, Ghidrah spat another lightning scourge. Showa ducked and rolled out of the way as Ghidrah's plasma beams struck Gigan's back. The space monster hopped and jumped as though touched by a live wire.

Showa popped up onto his feet and saluted Ghidrah for the assist.

In a fog of acrid smoke, Gigan staggered around shaking a hooked claw at Ghidrah, screeching insults. His last insult got pinched to a squeak. Heisei Godzilla grabbed Gigan's throat with his jaws. He hoisted the space monster off the ground rushing him toward the slope. The row of thorny barbs running down the center of Gigan's torso whirred to life like a buzz saw, flaying chunks of meat out of Godzilla's chest. With a roar he shoved Gigan away. He wasn't used to this wildcat type of fighting.

They grappled, Godzilla using his superior weight to bulldoze Gigan over the ridge. Gigan retaliated with blows from his hardened hooks. The ridge collapsed under their weight, spilling them down the hillside. They hit the water below like a thunderclap, rocking the navy ships standing vigil in the channel.

Aso pulled his knuckle from between his teeth. "Excellent move!" He realized the Heisei Godzilla was taking advantage of the fact that Gigan's hooked appendages were useless for swimming.

Gigan sank to the bottom like a rock. Godzilla fired into the channel. Water hissed and bubbled. He kept exhaling the blue ray, scalding Gigan right down to his water-filled lungs. A wave of vapor spread over the channel.

Back at the top of the hill Ghidrah took flight, circled around Showa Godzilla and swooped down on him like a hawk grabbing a rabbit. He flew Godzilla high up into the night sky. The city lights below twinkled like stars. Ghidrah flew high enough for them to taste the clouds. He chirped, Farewell, old friend, and released Godzilla.

Showa was ready for this stunt. He grabbed Ghidrah by the ankle.

Ghidrah flapped wildly and snapped at Godzilla's hands. Godzilla batted the heads away with his free hand, but it was like swatting vipers.

Losing altitude, Ghidrah struggled to stay airborne. Panning searchlights illuminated them through breaks in the cloudbank. Miki shrank back. It appeared as if they were barely hanging in the air above the house!

Ghidrah blasted Godzilla with his plasma bolts and still the Earth monster clung to his ankle.

Finally nature intervened. Dew from the clouds greased their scaly hides. Godzilla's grip slipped. But he was not falling alone. He managed to grab one of Ghidrah's tails. The maneuver caught the gilded dragon off guard. Ghidrah's wings folded back.

And they fell…

Miki laid down flat on the roof and braced herself for impact. The air rustled from their descent, and then they hit the dirt. The reverberation split the driveway, cracked the foundation of the house, and bounced Miki from her hold on the roof.

Showa Godzilla heard her cry out. Still dazed from the fall, he acted on pure instinct, lunging forward out of the impact crater to catch her before she fell. His clawed fingers speared through the tower. He felt something fall into his palm. Was it her? He felt no movement. When the searchlights panned across him he grunted in relief when he saw he did catch her. Miki had merely fainted.

Ghidrah rose from the crater in as much of a daze as Godzilla. Gigan dropped at his feet vomiting steamy water from his insides. He squeaked at Ghidrah he could take the "new kid!"

The two space monsters decided to flee for the stars.

Undaunted, Showa Godzilla tucked in his tail and blasted the ground, using his atomic ray like a jet engine.

Heisei Godzilla reeled around as astounded as the humans. They watched in awe as Showa Godzilla soared like a rocket.

Heisei Godzilla figured if Showa Godzilla could fly, so should he. He blasted the ground only to get a blowback of dirt in his face. He stepped back waving the dust away, growling in protest. How come the other Godzilla can fly and he can't?

#

Back in the control room, Goras issued orders. "We must teleport Ghidrah and Gigan back to our Earth before they get out of range. Once they have a chance to recover we'll renew the attack!"

The Spacemen opened the field.

#

Showa Godzilla caught up with Gigan and swatted Gigan out of the sky with his tail.

Gigan crashed upon the ground. He sputtered in misery. He saw no hope of escape until he spotted the vortex forming over the woods. He took off with Showa Godzilla in pursuit.

#

"Gigan has made it through the vortex," one of the ape aliens called from his post.

"Close the field," Goras ordered. "Hurry!"

His minions shut the field with a moment to spare before Godzilla could fly through.

"We lost control of the space monsters," the Spaceman continued. "Gigan has taken off for the stars. Ghidrah has, too, but in the parallel universe."

Goras didn't answer. He just stared fixedly at nothing.

"Commander?"

"I'm fine," Goras said abruptly.

Suddenly he peeled off his helmet by one of the antennas and beat the controls at his station. Buttons popped off the panel like broken teeth. The antenna snapped and the helmet bounced free from his grip. Goras grabbed a chair and flung it across the room, and then stormed out.

Tense, his subordinates watched him leave and then looked up at the source of their commander's fury, Mechagodzilla.

#

Shindo had been sitting on the bunk in his cell the whole time while the monsters had been fighting. He went from feeling trapped to bored out of his mind.

Then the bolt unlocked and Katsura entered, setting a suitcase and garment bag inside the door. She looked more dressed for action, wearing denim slacks and leather knee-high boots in place of her long dress. She fished Shindo's gun and cell phone out of her coat pocket and handed them back. After Shindo holstered his sidearm and pocketed his phone, Katsura showed him Ichinose's obituary photo.

"You work for the government in your world," she said. "Will you help me find this man?"

"Find him? I've met him." Shindo read the newspaper clipping. "But he doesn't go by the name Akira Ichinose. In my world he's Hiro Takashima. He's an author."

Katsura pensively bit her lip. "Ichinose is a marine biologist."

"Takashima writes textbooks on marine biology. They might be the same man. I assume the person in this photo is the one you were hinting of earlier." Shindo returned the clipping.

Katsura nodded.

Her demeanor had changed since he last spoke to her.

"I'm glad to see you've come to terms with your humanity," he added.

She smirked, reluctant to answer. Typical of the fairer sex, Shindo thought, she can't admit when a man's right.

"I am what I am," she said with a warm smile.

"That's all we need to be," he said for moral support.

"I have to take care of business downstairs," Katsura explained. "Stay here until I get back." Before she left she indicated to her stuff. "And watch my things."

"You want me to stay here and watch your bags?"

"You are a civil servant, aren't you?" Katsura teased.

"Wait a minute." Shindo took her arm. "There's no sense taking on Goras's bunch alone."

"You might be my only hope in finding Ichinose. I'm not going to risk losing you. Besides, this is a family problem."

Shindo released her arm. "I understand."

"Good!"

Shindo and Katsura jumped at the sound of Mogga's voice. The goateed Spaceman stood within the doorframe with a silver laser pistol trained on them. "Katsura is right. Her problems go back a long ways, and Goras wants to discuss them with her." Mogga stepped aside and gestured with the gun for her to exit the cell.

She did so, hesitantly.

"Downstairs," Mogga ordered.

She gave Shindo one last look before she left.

Next, Mogga signaled Shindo to come out.

He exited the cell, hands up, expecting to be frisked of his weapon and phone.

They faced each other in the hall.

"I suppose this is the end," Shindo said. "Do we say our goodbyes now or when I'm in front of the firing squad?"

"Not exactly. Meet a friend of mine."

A mangy paw gripped Shindo's shoulder. It was heavy, muscular, and hard. He turned around and confronted an alien ape that was more gorilla-like than the humanoid types like Mogga—stooped, with his knuckles dragging on the floor, yet massive as a bull. He leered down at Shindo like a child eager to play with a new toy.

"This is Crakis," Mogga introduced. "He's our household executioner. He prefers breaking bones over using guns."

"I guess I won't need a blindfold. May I have an Advil instead?"

"You're not funny, Shindo." Mogga then spoke to Crakis. "Meet me downstairs when you're through."

After Mogga headed down the steps, Shindo spun around and put three slugs into the barrel-chested monkey monster. Crakis grinned, showing a rugged set of incisors. Blood trickled from the bullets holes, but hardly enough to equal a bloody nose.

Shindo aimed for the eye, but Crakis proved faster, swatting the gun from his grasp. The monster's thick nails left gouges in the back of Shindo's hand.

There was no point in trying to go at it with fisticuffs. Shindo smashed a vase over Crakis's forehead and threw a night stand at his feet, causing the ape creature to stumble when he lunged.

Shindo retreated to another room and braced the door with a chair.

Then he had an idea. Since this was a parallel Earth, with any luck, the number to his boss's office should be the same.

Shindo hit speed dial on his cell.

Nothing happened. There was no signal!

"Don't they have cell phones in this dimension?" Shindo muttered.

Out in the hall Crakis began pounding the door.

On the other side of the room was a phone. Shindo tried it, getting a dial tone when he put the receiver to his ear. But there was one catch—the phone was a rotary.

"What is this, the 1970s?"

He cranked the dial. It rolled at an indolent pace while Crakis pulverized the door into scrap.

Finally Shindo reached someone, that is, after Crakis had made ingress and was charging across the room.

Fortunately the phone had a long cord. Shindo dropped back into the bathroom, locking the door. Crakis growled on the opposite side. The door shook as the simian threw its weight against it.

"Chief! This is Shindo!"

"Where are you?" the parallel-world Yamashita replied. "We were about to give you up for dead."

"Funny you should say that," Shindo remarked, recalling the fact that the Spacemen had probably killed the Shindo of this world. "I'm at the old Mafune house on Manazura Island. Hold on!" Shindo set the phone down on the toilet, wrenched free the bathroom countertop and smashed out the window.

Crakis bashed his shoulder through the door, splitting it in two. Blood lust was in his eyes as he grabbed the two halves of the door and wrenched them out of his way.

Retrieving the phone, Shindo climbed out of the window, and up on the roof. "Listen, send men. Send the Army."

"I have a battalion on standby. Just hold tight for fifteen minutes. Anything else you can tell us?"

Shindo kept backing up until the phone cord lost its slack. Crakis by then was climbing up onto the roof.

"Sorry, Chief. Gotta go. I'm at the end of my line!"

#

Katsura confronted Goras in the control room. "Mogga said you wanted to talk to me."

Goras pointed toward the teleportation cubicle. "Go to Mechagodzilla's silo."

Two guards escorted her to the cubicle. They teleported to the silo. The escort remained at the cubicle entrance while she stepped to the middle of the chamber wondering what this was about.

"Where were you this afternoon?" Mechagodzilla asked.

"Is it any of your business?"

The Spacemen and Mechagodzilla stared at Katsura in an uneasy silence.

"That's a funny way of talking." Mechagodzilla spoke cautiously. "We lost a major battle because you weren't at your duty station."

Katsura shrugged.

"You don't seem to be yourself. Mogga searched all over for you and when he found you, you were in Shindo's cell. Why did you go to his cell? Wait…" Mechagodzilla straightened his posture. The cables plugged into his arms clattered together. "I have just monitored a phone call leaving the house. It's the prisoner. He has called for help. Soldiers are on the way!"

"Good!" Katsura headed back to the teleportation cubicle. "I'll wait on the front stoop and let them in."

The guards blocked the cubicle's entrance.

"You stupid short circuit!" Goras yelled at Katsura over the speakers. "Those soldiers will destroy you, too. As far as the humans are concerned there is as much blood on your hands as there is on ours."

"Are you trying to frighten me, Goras? I thought I was supposed to be a cyborg. Cyborg's don't have feelings."

"We built you. We are the only ones who can take care of you. You belong to us."

Katsura spoke in a tone they had never heard before—mature, like someone who knew where she stood. "Bullying and brainwashing works well on someone who is young and vulnerable. I'm not a teenager anymore."

"I'm giving you a chance to cooperate. Don't throw it away."

Katsura bristled. She glared at the video link with the control room. "Goras, I'm only going to tell you once: Get the hell out of my life!"

For a long while the speaker was quiet. Goras seethed. Finally, he spoke. "Have it your way."

The two Spacemen whipped out their guns.

"So anyway, where were you?" Mechagodzilla interrupted to ease the tension.

Goras ordered his troops over the video link to stand down.

"Are you all right?" Mechagodzilla asked. "As I said, you don't seem to be yourself."

Katsura was taken aback. His concern sounded genuine. "Around. Outside. My father's room."

"What were you doing there?" Mechagodzilla sounded fretful.

"Nothing important."

"You've not been upstairs for years. Now suddenly you were. There is a reason. I know. Tell me what you were doing. Now!"

"No!"

Mechagodzilla twitched his head as if he had just been slapped in the face. His voice exploded, sending tremors through the silo walls. "I am your only friend. I'm trying to keep you alive and this is how you treat me? I SHOULD LET YOU BE DESTROYED FOR THIS!"

"If that's what friends do then do it."

The two Spacemen aimed their weapons at Katsura.

"Wait!" Mechagodzilla held out his gleaming, titanium hand. He chuckled. "We're getting excited over nothing. I understand what's happening. Because of our mental link, my sentient nature has had an effect on you, Katsura. Let me assure you whatever feelings you think you have you are drawing from me and interpreting them as your own. In a way I guess you can say I am rubbing off on you. I can only imagine the confusion and the sense of emptiness you're experiencing. For that I apologize." He put his hand to his chest and humbly bowed.

Now Katsura understood what Shindo was telling her. "No. You need me. You've been looking for affection and companionship. Those things help me survive. Now you think they should work for you. You have been studying me, forming a personality compatible with those needs." Katsura slipped her hands into her coat pockets. "It's ironic while I let everyone else dehumanize me you were the only one who saw that I was a person. In a way I should thank you."

"I knew if I put you two together the truth would come out," Goras boasted over the speakers. "We have just enough time to make a couple of adjustments in you Katsura, and you too Mechagodzilla, and when you two are back online you won't be so sentimental. Guards, bring Katsura to the control room."

Suddenly two massive beams erupted like a blast furnace around Katsura. She dropped to the floor covering her head. Two explosions thundered inside the silo. The Spacemen were gone. Vaporized.

Mechagodzilla relaxed from his firing posture. His eye beam cannons still glowed from the discharge of energy.

"You will be safe with me," he assured Katsura.

Without so much as a backward glance, she drew her own weapon and headed for the teleportation cubicle.

"Don't go! I forbid you!" Mechagodzilla pleaded. "Katsura, they'll kill you!"

#

Hiro Takashima sat at the window of his fifth floor apartment, paging through the Science Fiction novel he had authored. The curtains were closed. He didn't want to see the world outside. It wasn't his. In this world there was no record of his birth. Many people he knew from his Earth existed here, too, but back on his Earth they were friends and colleagues. Here they were strangers. He had to rebuild his existence, and since he did it through books he went by his pen name instead of his real one—Akira Ichinose.

Sci-Fi fans raved about his novel, particularly the chapter after the climactic battle when the alien invaders shoot the hero and kidnap the girlfriend. The sense of loss coming off the page was arresting. What they didn't know was that the reason the novel seemed so vivid was because he based his work on his own life.

After he recovered from the blaster wound, he had returned to Mafune's estate armed. He bludgeoned his way through every Spaceman who got in his way and stormed into the control room with a blaster he had grabbed from one of the Spacemen.

She was there. So were the two aliens who had taken her, Goras and Mogga.

"Ichinose," Goras said. "I didn't know marine biologists were qualified to perform rescue missions."

"Hand over your guns," he shouted.

"We don't have any guns," Goras said. "You can fix that by giving us yours."

Mogga chuckled.

It infuriated him that they didn't take him seriously. He had the gun. He had the power. He ordered them to shut up, and then called to her to come with him. She didn't move. Neither did he have a chance to read her reaction. Events moved too fast.

Goras pressed buttons and switches at the control banks. He threatened to shoot if Goras didn't take his hands off the controls.

"You don't have the guts to kill in cold blood," Goras said. "That's why you should have sent soldiers. Mogga."

Ichinose put his sights on Mogga. But all Mogga had to do was turn a dial and a bright swirling light engulfed him. The light made Ichinose feel as though he was being sucked out of reality. In the next instant he found himself standing on a sidewalk in Tokyo, of a Japan that had no Akira Ichinose.

He set the book down on his desk. Now tears began to flow. His anger brought up vivid memories of Goras and Mogga. But the tides of time were washing away the memory of Katsura's face.

#

Katsura knelt down inside the cubicle, reached up and pressed the entry switch. The door slid aside. As she predicted, the Spacemen had set an ambush at the door. Two of them swung into view, firing their guns. They would've hit her in the chest if she had been standing. Instead their laser beams shot over her head.

She blasted them and dove out of the teleportation cubicle and behind the first row of control banks. Energy beams criss-crossed the control room

"Katsura, behind you!" Mechagodzilla called over the video link.

She spun around firing a laser blast at an alien ape trying to flank her.

Goras switched off Mechagodzilla's video link. Hotwired to the system, Mechagodzilla just switched the camera back on.

"Destroy the camera!" Goras yelled.

His last trooper fired up at the camera, which gave away his position. Katsura weaved through the control banks like a cat on the prowl and lasered him from behind.

Goras popped out of hiding. By sheer luck she spotted him in her peripheral vision. There was no time to think. She acted out of instinct, swatting his firing hand to the side as he pulled the trigger. His blaster beam speared the nearest control bank, yielding a resounding boom and a splash of sparks.

Goras was equally swift. He wrenched her wrist. She lost her grip on her gun. It fell to the floor and Goras kicked it across the room.

What he couldn't take from her was Katsura's one unstoppable weapon—her hatred of him. She would not quit until she repaid him for the years his people had taken from her.

Katsura threw her shoulder into his gut, knocking the wind out of him as his back hit the concrete wall. His gun fell from his grip, right within her reach. Goras wrapped his arm around her neck. He unleashed his hatred for her, for corrupting Mechagodzilla, for unraveling his whole operation. He swung her side to side, slamming her into the control banks.

The blows they exchanged would've crippled the finest fighters, but their mutual hate didn't allow them to feel anything. It was like one inferno trying to extinguish the other.

"Give up!" Goras tightened his chokehold. "I have a reason to live! You don't!"

Katsura grabbed his ankle and pulled his foot out from underneath him. He slammed the back of his head, stunning him for an instant—all the time she needed to grab one of the guns from the floor.

Goras gnashed his teeth at the site of the laser pistol. "Go ahead. Pull the trigger. Shooting me won't be enough. You won't get satisfaction."

"You think so?" She shot him.

Katsura took a breath. All around her the Spacemen were dead. Yes, she felt satisfied. She holstered the gun into her inside coat pocket.

"They're all yours, Father."

#

Shindo ducked back into the house through a skylight and retrieved his pistol. He was grateful Mafune's home was large. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to ditch Crakis.

Army trucks rolled up the driveway. Their headlights beamed through the windows.

Yamashita's men had arrived.

This was going to be a mixed blessing. Shindo needed the backup but he couldn't afford to be caught. They'll think he was their Shindo.

He ran downstairs, to the mirrored door. While he waited for the door to slide out of his way, Mogga leapt out of the shadows. He snarled in Shindo's ear, eager to win their rematch. Shindo threw him off his back and aimed his pistol.

Mogga chopped the gun out of his, punched him the stomach, and slammed him into the wall.

Shindo gasped "Aw!" from the blow to the stomach and "Oof!" when he hit the wall.

They traded punches.

The alien ape-man struck the secret service agent in the face with the flat of his hand. Shindo fell back through the doorway, onto the floor. He was losing ground, not gaining. The only good thing was that he fell upon his gun.

However, Mogga now had the space to reach for his holster.

Shindo didn't have so much as a heartbeat to calculate how he was going to do this. Just as Mogga drew and triggered his laser Shindo spun, grabbed, and fired.

For a moment both gunmen stood poised. Then Shindo slumped, gripping his side.

But as for Mogga, blood dribbled down his silver uniform from his throat. He dropped like a felled tree.

Then Yomo swung open the metal door at the top of the stairs. "Shindo! You're alive!"

Shindo didn't reply. The man at the top of the stairs was his friend in body and soul. Yet in terms of time and space they were strangers.

He couldn't tell Yomo the truth. How was a man supposed to react when he's told his friend is dead, and the person telling him looks just like his friend?

It would be cruel.

Shindo ducked through the mirrored door.

"Wait!" Yomo called from the other side, his voice swelling with concern.

Shindo hated himself for shutting the door in his friend's face. There just wasn't a good alternative.

He ran down to the control room in the basement and locked the auxiliary door.

"You've been hit!" Katsura tossed him a healing pad from the Spacemen's first aid kit mounted on the wall. "Press that against the burn. It'll kill the pain."

While he applied the pad, she positioned him in the middle of the room. "Mechagodzilla is trying to stop us from crossing over to your world. I can block him for a few seconds but I can't stop him from following us."

"Better hurry," Shindo urged her. "The army's right behind me."

She finished the sequence to execute teleportation and joined him in the center of the room.

Mechagodzilla glared at them from the overhead monitor as he ripped the cables from his arms.

Then the mirrored door exploded. Soldiers stormed into the control room.

The swirling vortex transported Shindo and Katsura back to his universe in the middle of a briefing Sayoko was giving to members of General Aso's staff. "These instruments seem to be an anchor point between the parallel Earths. At times these panels will light up as though someone is operating the corresponding controls in the other Earth…uh…like now!"

Shindo and Katsura appeared, looking worse for wear after their fight with the Spacemen.

Sayoko gaped.

Before she and the staff could barrage him with questions, Shindo herded everyone upstairs and out of the house. The sky was showing signs of first light. Sitting on the front step was Miki holding a cold compress to her head. Beside her was Yomo—his Yomo.

"Shindo!" Yomo jumped to his feet. "Where were you?"

They clasped hands. Shindo felt grateful, so very grateful to be home and seeing his friends alive and well.

"Listen up," he said. "Everyone head for the channel. Stay as far away from us as possible. We have a war machine hot on our heels and it's after her," Shindo pointed to Katsura.

Aso's men got into their staff cars.

"What are you going to do?" Yomo asked.

"Run for starters," Shindo said.

Yomo slapped his car keys into Shindo's hand.

"What's this?" Shindo asked.

"A head start," Yomo said.

Katsura hugged Yomo and kissed his cheek in gratitude.

Out in the grounds the vortex began to swirl.

Shindo and Katsura hopped into Yomo's car as Miki, Sayoko, and Yomo sought cover in the house.

Mechagodzilla soared out of the vortex, flying over the estate via the jets in his legs. With the pedal to the floor Shindo headed for the Pacific coast, twisting around the trees felled by the monsters during their battle. Mechagodzilla flew overhead and landed in their path. He dropped the plate cover to his chest laser and discharged a jagged light ray right in front of the car. Shindo swerved. The beam traced around the vehicle in a circle of fire.

Shindo skidded the car to a halt.

Katsura got out of the car. He exited, too, but she signaled him to stay put.

The giant robot's footfalls clanged as Mechagodzilla approached them and stopped. He stared down at Shindo, his eyes glowing bright, primed to fire.

Shindo held up his hands to show he wasn't about to interfere.

"Don't harm him!" Katsura ran toward Mechagodzilla.

The towering cyborg powered down his eye lasers and turned toward Katsura, looming over her. "I will not allow you to run away from me. Now I concede I am not complete. But neither are you. We need each other."

"For what?" Katsura spread her hands imploringly. "Do you still plan on becoming a hero?"

"We are born of technology which is alien to this world. Who will take care of us? We are misfit machines you and I."

"You're wrong," Katsura shook her head. "I may seem to be a cyborg, but I'm not. I'm a human being. Humans can replace their hands, their hips and knees, even ventricles in their hearts, but that doesn't change the core of who they are. Even though the cybernetics in my body is more sophisticated, the principle is the same. They replace a broken body. They don't replace one's soul."

Miki, Yomo, and Sayoko came back out of the house to see what was going on. They marveled at Mechagodzilla. They had never before seen a kaiju speak.

Mechagodzilla at last admitted the truth: "I cannot maintain my—soul—as you put it without a master copy. I like having a personality, its endless variables. You must stay with me. I need you."

"What do you expect? Are we supposed to get a little cottage and move in together?"

Mechagodzilla didn't reply.

"Answer me!"

Mechagodzilla still didn't speak.

"See?" Katsura said. "You know as well as I it's impossible for us to stay together."

"And you know better than anyone what it's like to be lonely!" Mechagodzilla thrust an accusing finger at her. His voice became shrill with desperation and rage. It echoed across the whole island. "How dare you force another to live in such misery!"

"I have my life to live. If you are a person as you say you are go back to where you came from. Fulfill your own dreams. Just don't include me in them."

"Then you leave me no alternative." Mechagodzilla clenched his fist. "I shall force you to stay with me since you won't do so willingly."

"And I will die in your grip. Go away. Please! Or you will leave me no alternative."

Mechagodzilla unclenched his fist. "Don't say that! Just don't abandon me. Just…don't!"

Katsura sighed, exasperated. "You were built not born. You can't have a soul installed like a new hard drive. It can't be accessed, downloaded, encrypted, or imitated. Either you have one or you don't. Spiritually, Mechagodzilla, you do not exist." She shrugged. She had nothing left to say. "I'm sorry."

Mechagodzilla gripped his titanium-armored chest and swayed as though he were about to be sick. Where was he going to go? What was he going to do? He needed another "master copy", a companion to protect him from loneliness.

He looked to the one he was most familiar with, his old enemy, Showa Godzilla.

Godzilla scowled at him. A low growl rumbled in his throat.

Mechagodzilla looked down to Showa Godzilla's new friend, the psychic Miki Saegusa.

She stared at him as though she were looking at someone who was emotionally ill.

He then turned to the people watching from the channel—the hearts and minds he had hoped to win over. These were the same people who embraced the Godzillas with their cheers and applause. Now, at the sight of his riveted machine face, with its features constructed in a permanent snarl, they cowered away from the edge of the docks.

Mechagodzilla turned full circle to Katsura, his last hope, his only hope. He hung his head in a beseeching manner, pleading for sympathy.

She wouldn't look at him. Instead she closed her eyes and concentrated.

Mechagodzilla reacted with a start when his hand, seemingly under its own volition, rose. Katsura was using the controller inside her to force him to point his finger rockets at his head. She was trying to end his existence.

"Stop! Not this way!" he bleated. "It's not right!" The hand kept inching its way up, raising the missiles on target. "Leave me be and I'll leave you be! I swear!" His voice grunted, struggling to countermand Katsura's directive. "Someone, please! Stop her! Don't let me die!" He threw his head back and let out a horrid, resounding wail. Electric arcs flickered from the seams in his head as circuitry sizzled and popped within. The lights went out of his eyes and he slumped forward. Smoke poured out of the ventilation grill in his neck. He hung there in that stance, arms dangling from his shoulders like a limp puppet.

Katsura ran back to the car and Shindo drove them back to the house to pick up Yomo, Miki, and Sayoko.

"Jump in!" Shindo jutted his thumb toward the back door of the car.

"What's the hurry?" Yomo asked. "Its CPU must be fried."

Katsura shook her head. "We were mentally linked. All he did was destroy the link. He's rebooting now. When he's done he won't recall us. All he's going to see are targets and function accordingly."

"She's right," Miki concurred. "I sensed the psychic connection between you. Anyone else would rather lose their life than their humanity. Mechagodzilla chose to sacrifice his humanity to save his life."

"You lost me," Yomo said. "Can you explain that all over again, but slower?"

"Let's roll!" Shindo revved the motor as a hint they needed to go.

Once everyone piled in back, Shindo peeled out of the driveway. He used the dashboard GPS to select a location for a pickup and phoned for a chopper from the mainland.

Suddenly Mechagodzilla's eyes lit. Its posture straightened, servos whirring. The toothy jaws split and emitted a harsh, grating cry.

Mechagodzilla was back on line.

Showa Godzilla roared to Heisei to attack.

The instant Mechagodzilla detected Showa Godzilla it knocked him down with a pulverizing fusillade of rockets from its left hand; and launched a second fusillade at Heisei Godzilla. Its chest plate dropped. Its mouth opened. It fired all the energy weapons concealed about its person. Laser beams of various colors and intensities pierced the black clouds of smoke created by the warheads. Within the Godzillas tossed and turned. Their cries of pain were barely audible over the din of explosions and lasers crackling through the air.

There was no respite until Mechagodzilla's sensors detected the temperature of its weapons exceeding tolerance level. The machine ceased fire and blasted off into the air, blowing gray exhaust from the soles of its feet.

While the smoke prevented the struggling Godzillas to see where it was going, Mechagodzilla's scanners allowed it to see them. It landed with a heavy clang behind Showa Godzilla, grabbed his tail and spun him around. The swish of his body through the air fanned away the smoke. Mechagodzilla released Godzilla's tail letting him soar right into his Heisei double. Both animals tumbled over each other and on top of the old Mafune house.

Mechagodzilla emitted a gratified sounding screech and stomped toward them in clanging footsteps.

Then the machine monster stopped. The behavior of Heisei Godzilla registered as being bewildered by the amount of punishment he sustained, while the behavior of the other adversary, the one Mechagodzilla already possessed an extensive data file on, didn't match the correct parameters. He was carrying on, squealing more than he should. This indicated a trap.

Mechagodzilla's moment of calculation was the window of opportunity Showa Godzilla needed. He belted Mechagodzilla with a blast of his atomic ray and then hopped back to his feet. Covered with open wounds, he wiped the blood from his eyes and charged.

#

Shindo made it to the pickup site where a chopper was waiting. Yamashita hopped out of the copter and greeted him and Yomo like sons. Over the last two days he had been worried sick about their welfare.

"Thanks, Chief," Yomo said. "Normally you say hello to us with a harrumph."

"I do not!" Yamashita harrumphed.

Shindo and Yomo looked at each other, shrugged, and let it slide.

"Who is this?" Yamashita asked when he noticed the one stranger in the group.

"Katsura Mafune," Shindo put her arm around her. "Daughter of Dr. Shinzo Mafune of the parallel Earth."

"I thought I recognized the family resemblance." Yamashita took her hand. "When I worked in the field I was assigned as a bodyguard to Dr. Mafune. I understand the Mafune of my world was not the same man as your father. It's just that I admired him greatly."

"Did you?" Katsura took Yamashita's words to heart.

"He was a great man, like your father, I'm sure."

"Yes." She raised her chin proudly. "My father was a great man."

The helicopter took off. Manazura Island now belonged to the monsters.

Showa Godzilla twisted Mechagodzilla's right arm behind the machines back while Heisei Godzilla gripped Mechagodzilla's left in his jaws.

Unable to pull itself free, Mechagodzilla spun its head, discharging his force field. The blue cylinder of energy repelled both Godzillas off its arms. Mechagodzilla kicked Showa over the hillside and confronted Heisei Godzilla.

Showa rolled into the fishing village on the coast. This was just the break he was looking for! He split the power lines and gripped the livewires. Electric current surged through his body. His fins flared into a fiery spectacle.

Mechagodzilla hissed resonantly and poised to fight Heisei Godzilla.

Heisei could tell the machines he had fought were piloted by humans by the slow, clumsy manner in which they moved. This machine fought like an animal yet it had no scent or anything to indicate it breathed the breath of life. To Heisei Godzilla, this Mechagodzilla was an abomination.

He bit the metal monster. When his teeth didn't sink in he clamped down on another part of the titanium body, determined to find a weak point.

Mechagodzilla twisted his arm and cuffed him across the head, back, neck, wherever it could get a good angle as Godzilla writhed in its iron grip. It hissed its grating shriek in a mocking tone.

Godzilla shoved the berserker away and fired his atomic ray.

By then, Mechagodzilla's weapons had cooled. It counterattacked with the beam weapon from its mouth. The two rays hit head on. In a show of strength both animal and machine kept pouring their energies into their rays. In increments Godzilla was proving the stronger. Then Mechagodzilla locked its gaze with Godzilla's and fired its eye beams.

White hot pain shot through Godzilla's skull. He staggered back.

Mechagodzilla leveled its missile-launching hands, dropped the chest plate cover, all its weapons locked on target.

Godzilla still ached from the last drubbing he had taken. The urges between fight and flight vied for dominance. His excited state awakened within him a remnant of the life force he had absorbed from the Rodan of his world. In his mind's eye he could see the diminutive pterosaur spread its wings, he could hear its cry.

Miki gasped. She watched the fight from the helicopter window. "Fire Rodan is back!"

"Didn't Godzilla absorb Fire Rodan when they fought our Mechagodzilla," Shindo asked.

Miki nodded. "Yes, but Fire Rodan's spirit has not forsaken him."

Mechagodzilla's eye beams had blinded Godzilla, but Rodan's spirit promised to guide him.

Godzilla regained his footing. Red lightning crackled from his fins as he fired his atomic ray. It blazed like the sun and exploded off of Mechagodzilla's space-titanium hide. Mechagodzilla staggered back, spitting sparks from its riveted seams. Heisei Godzilla inhaled and spewed a second burst of his super-heated flame. It boomed off its armor. The titanium plates rattled loose. Mechagodzilla could not detect where the monster suddenly acquired that kind of power. Time to leave. It ignited its VTOL rockets. It barely got off the ground only to be caught in an invisible force.

Showa Godzilla had crested the summit. He had used the current from the power lines to turn himself into a living magnet. He drew in his fists as though he were reining in Mechagodzilla with a lasso. Mechagodzilla struggled for altitude only to be pulled down to the ground. Showa grunted to Heisei to finish it.

Heisei Godzilla roared in acknowledgment then turned toward Mechagodzilla, the red fire blazing over his back. He blasted off one arm, inhaled, and then blew off the other. The limbs crashed at Mechagodzilla's feet. Mechagodzilla's cry sputtered. Godzilla swung his beam low, cutting through the legs. Mechagodzilla's torso collapsed upon the ground. Finally together, Godzilla and Godzilla fired. What remained of the machine monster, twitching and sputtering, ignited into a thunderous fireball. Glowing bits of hot metal and circuitry rained down out of the rising column of smoke.

Mechagodzilla was no more.

The helicopter had landed across the channel in enough time for Katsura to get out and witness Mechagodzilla's destruction. She found it poignant as well appropriate to see her last tie to the Spacemen brought to an end at the start of a new day.

"Come on," Shindo urged. "Yamashita said he can cash in on a few favors with city hall in Tokyo. It shouldn't take long to find out if our author is your marine biologist."

Miki and Sayoko met up with General Aso as he and his staff came out of his command tent, jovial over the outcome. The General loomed over Miki. He was a head taller and twice as wide.

"Is that the end of the alien menace?" he asked.

"Shindo said on the helicopter a lot of the aliens had been killed," Miki said. "The army in the Parallel Earth is overrunning their base as we speak. They're finished."

"I'm glad to hear it. The press is looking for a statement. Excuse me."

"Wait a minute!" Miki stepped into his way. "The aliens are gone. But aren't we back to square one? I mean," she cleared her throat for emphasis, "what about those two?" She indicated to the two Godzillas on Manazura Island.

Catching her meaning, General Aso glowered at her. "Don't be difficult, Saegusa-san." He strode off with his staffers to speak to the press.

Showa Godzilla decided it was time to go. The vortex portal Mechagodzilla had opened needed to be closed before someone unwittingly stepped through it. He showed Heisei Godzilla a gesture of camaraderie he had learned from the android Jet Jaguar. He took Godzilla's hand in his and gave it a hearty shake. Heisei Godzilla didn't understand.

Perhaps someday he would.

Showa Godzilla grunted to Heisei: This is your world. Take care of it.

He turned to leave.

"This is goodbye," Miki said to Sayoko. "Showa is going home."

The word spread through the crowd. People waved, calling out, "Sayonara!"

Showa Godzilla gallantly stopped with one foot through the vortex and held up his paw in farewell and acknowledged Miki especially with a nod.

Miki wiped a tear from her eye. She would never see him again. Friendships were too short, like life itself. "Goodbye, Godzilla!" she cried to be heard over the other voices. "I'll miss you!"

Showa Godzilla passed through the vortex. On the other side he roared at the soldiers to clear away from the Mafune house. When they were far enough away he set the building aflame, destroying the alien machinery within. The vortex winked out. The door between the two worlds was sealed.

#

At Hiro Takashima's apartment, the subway rattled by outside. There were an increasing number of honking horns as the afternoon traffic thickened. Hiro considered shaving and taking a shower. On the other hand, why? He had a meeting planned with his editor for Saturday, which was a couple of days away. In the mean time he didn't plan on seeing anyone, and he didn't want to, although sometimes he had an inkling that he should get cleaned up just in case he'd run into someone he'd want to talk to.

Such an inclination he dismissed because nothing of the sort happened. It was just hope trying to assert itself.

Then the doorbell rang.

He answered and was taken aback to see the man he had met at the airport. What got his hackles up was that this person was with another man, and they both exuded an air of authority—police officer type of authority.

"I'm Shindo Yamaguchi. This is my partner Yomo Kuta. You may remember me from the airport."

Hiro said he did.

"We're with the National Security Service." Shindo and Yomo presented identification. "We've been looking into your background," Shindo continued, "and we found some anomalies."

"Oh?" Hiro said. His guard went up.

"For instance, we've found no record of your birth or education, and your tax records only go back two years. It's become necessary to verify your identity."

"My identity is that much of a concern that a couple of secret service men have to be sent to my door?"

"Actually," Shindo said, "we should clarify. We're not here on official business. It's more freelance."

"Freelance," Yomo concurred with a nod.

"We're working for a—um—client. Wouldn't you say, Yomo?"

Yomo nodded again. "Absolutely."

"Who is your client?" Hiro asked, losing patience.

Shindo stood aside to let Katsura step into view. Hiro's hand shot up to his stubbly face.

"Ichinose, I'd recognize you anywhere!" Katsura threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him hard.

Ichinose wanted to reunite with her so badly and now that the miracle had happened all he could think about was how he must smell like a sweaty sock.

Katsura laughed with a playful chime to her voice and rustled his greasy hair. "Look at you! You're a sight."

She pressed her hands against his chest to get him to step back so she could come in.

Shindo motioned to Yomo with his thumb it was time for them to leave and closed the door. Their work was done.

Hiro, or rather, Ichinose forgot about the secret agents. He was focused on Katsura. After resigning himself to a slow death by solitude, it took almost a minute of stunned silence to pass before his addled brain could come up with something to say.

"How did you…?" he started to say.

"Same way as you," she said. "Teleportation."

"But the Spacemen…"

"All dead. Here." Katsura drew the silver laser pistol from her coat. "A souvenir."

Ichinose finally smiled. "I've got one of those." He opened a drawer and brought out the pistol he had with him when Mogga had sent him over to this parallel world.

"I'll paint mine pink," Katsura said. "Then we'll have his and hers ray guns."

Ichinose tapped her gun with his as though he were toasting with a champagne glass. It was to their new beginning. Two years had gone by since he had a chance to pick up from where they had left off. Life was what you make of it. Ichinose was going to make it worth the wait.

#

Miki remained at the docks, sitting atop a stack of crates long after most people had gone home. The show was over, so to speak, even though Godzilla, their Godzilla, still milled around the destroyed Mafune estate, scraping at the ruins with his foot. He seemed to be having second thoughts on whether or not the events of the last two days had been real. In that Miki sympathized.

Nevertheless, Baby Godzilla ought to be at peace now that the human surrogate mother who cared for him at birth was safe. That was the only reason why Godzilla came back. His purpose accomplished he turned from the ruins and roamed toward the ocean side of Manazura Island.

Shindo and Yomo joined Miki at the docks in time to see Godzilla go.

"Do you think there is good in our Godzilla like the other one?" Yomo asked Miki.

"Yes," she said. Miki concentrated, searching deeper into Godzilla's thoughts. Her expression gained confidence. "Yes, I believe there is."

The End


End file.
